“Our differences are magnificent”, Benoît Magimel’s declaration of friendship to Reda Kateb, on the poster for “Omar à la fraise”

Cannes is not a first for them. But on the same poster, they had never done. “We sniffed each other. There had been a desire for a long time to play together”, says Reda Kateb, interviewed by franceinfo. The actor embodies Omar the strawberry, a nickname that remains mysterious throughout the first movie ofElias Belkeddar, funny and tarantinesque work in the streets of Algiers. Reda Kateb offers the reply to Benoît Magimel, Omar and Roger, two friends, two old-fashioned bandits assigned to Algeria by force of circumstance. They will then reconvert and want to settle down. Wanting only, because the blood will not be long in flowing again.

The two accomplices, who swear to each other in the image of nourishing their friendship and fraternity “to life and death”, are they also in life off the sets? “Friendship is differences. And our differences are wonderful because we don’t admire each other for the same things”agrees Benoît Magimel, happy to defend the film on the Croisette, out of competition, and which is released in theaters this Wednesday with Meriem Amair at their side. “We also find ourselves in the naivety that we had in our early days in the world of cinema, we didn’t have the codes. I think that’s something we share.”