(Tue 23rd, Thu 25th, Sun 28th Feb at 8pm, Fri 26th at 11 pm / £4/3/2 ttt) (Jaques Audiard / France / 155 minutes / 2009 / cert 18 / subtitles)

Audiard's follow up film after The Beat that My Heart Skipped has been widely acclaimed since its screening at Cannes and like that film, A Prophet is both tough brutal and beautiful and thoughtful. The central character no less a man capable of violence yet touchingly we are aware that he is caught up by circumstance.

The protagonist anti-hero is Malik (a riveting Tahar Rahim), a young French- Arab who has spent most of his life in detention centres and finally grows up into a harsh adult prison world where he is forced to find a path between its rival gangs, including Muslim inmates and Corsican gangsters.

Tense, brutal and tender, the film shows Malik's egg-shell education on the rules of prison life. Malik has to play by the rules to survive in a world of violence and inmate hierarchy. Despite the cruelty, Audiard keeps us on Malik's side, we believe he is capable of a different life because of the sensitive way we witness his conscience and vulnerability...