Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan starts with a Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam soldier igniting the funeral pyre of his dead comrades. Then the soldier takes off his uniform and tosses it into the flames. He has lost everything – his family, his war. He just wants to get out of the country. So does a woman called Yalini. Because she knows that families have a much better chance of getting out, she is looking for a spare child, preferably an orphan, who will pretend that they are mother and daughter. She finds a nine year-old girl called Illayaal who has lost her family, too. They meet the soldier. The fake family is complete.

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