Paris à tout prix (2013)

Originally from Morocco, Maya, a young stylist at the Ritz fashion house, has lived in Paris for twenty years on residence permits and has become thoroughly integrated into French life. As a fashion show approaches, the demanding and ruthless head of the fashion house pits Maya against her colleague Emma: the better of the two stylists will get a permanent employment contract. After one night of excessive drinking, Maya is stopped by the police for dangerous driving, and they discover that her residence permit has expired. She is deported from France in less than twenty-four hours, despite the help of a lawyer friend who had tried to seduce her on several occasions. Back in Morocco, she is less than happy to be reunited with her family, who reproach her for not having been in touch for years. Accustomed to a fairly bourgeois lifestyle among Paris’s jet set, she takes her return to Morocco very badly, regarding the country as backward and despising it. She is also estranged from her father, whom she blames for not telling her that her mother had died. Her brother, meanwhile, mocks her snobbery by playing a few humiliating pranks on her. After unsuccessfully trying to get a visa to return to France, Maya becomes despondent. However, the support of her sister-in-law and grandmother helps her keep her spirits up. With her grandmother’s help, she continues working on her fashion-show dress and eventually begins to find some charm in the country, its landscapes, and Mehdi, her brother’s friend. To make the dress, she draws inspiration from Moroccan clothing motifs she saw during a walk in the desert. Maya runs into several acquaintances who are vacationing in Morocco, and the lie she told her employer—that an accident had left her housebound—is exposed. Mehdi eventually finds a way for her to get back to France: a fake passport. Her friend Alexandra picks her up at the airport and takes her to the fashion show, where she is supposed to present her dress. Her boss is initially angry but agrees to show her work. Impressed by the reception Maya’s dress receives and admiring her determination, he ultimately gives her the permanent contract and makes Emma his assistant. An epilogue set one year later shows that Mehdi has joined her in Paris and that they are living together as a couple.