Alimentation Générale 2005

Directed by Chantal Briet

In Epinay-sur-Seine, in the neighborhood called « la Source », Ali’s grocery store is the only shop still in business of the decayed shopping center. It’s also the only place left for the forsaken inhabitants of the surrounding tower blocks to meet, a shelter where they can get together and exchange. This documentary film takes us into the everyday life of a small grocery store. As customers pass by, Ali, the charismatic shopkeeper, also part-time singer, is benevolently welcoming them. This moving and often amusing chronicle shows the importance of such a place, a small shop “around the corner”, in the middle of the Projects, where in spite of difficulties and poverty, people still share user-friendliness, laughter, human warmth.