Alimentation Générale

At Epinay-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, we find ourselves in a shopping center in the heart of the completely desolated "la Source" housing projects. Ali’s convenience store is the only meeting place left for the neighborhood. This is where the director installs her camera to film an amazing gallery of portraits, a reflection of the local population’s diversity as well as of it’s social and economic situation. Chantal Briet uses touches of humor as well as real moments of joy -thanks to Ali’s jovial spirit- to help us discover the humanity of this corner of the world, of the people of all ages and creeds who live there and often under precarious conditions. With footage that spans four years, "Alimentation générale" is a kind of filmic diary of the neighborhood. A documentary about a neighborhood’s social net as told by a small shopkeeper on the brink of extinction...