The cinematic force that is Ryan Coogler brings us deep into Jacques Audiard’s masterful, layered Un Prophéte. When Malik, an Algerian man, arrives to serve his sentence in a French prison, he must rely upon his capacity for observation and learning to navigate the complex dynamics of race, ethnicity, language, and power that define life behind these particular bars. Ryan touches on why this film is often compared to The Godfather, and describes Malik, played by the fiercely intense Tahar Rahmin as, “the greatest learner ever put to screen.” 

We hear about Ryan’s formative years as a film student at U.S.C., his first visit to the Cannes Film Festival, and how Alejandro Iñárritu’s Amores Perros and Fernando Merielles and Katia Lund’s City of God have also inspired him along the way.

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