Illegal (2010 film)
2010 film by Olivier Masset-Depasse
Illegal (French: Illégal) is a 2010 Belgian drama film directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse. The film was selected as the Belgian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 83rd Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist. The film received eight nominations at the 1st Magritte Awards, winning Best Actress for Anne Coesens and Best Supporting Actress for Christelle Cornil. The film is critical of practices of Belgian immigration officers.
Plot
The film follows Tania and her 13-year-old son Ivan, two illegal Russian aliens living in Belgium. After being denied Belgian permanent residence, Tania deliberately burns her fingers to remove her fingerprints and avoid identification. Tania advises her Belarusian friend Zina to apply for political asylum, since Belarus is considered a dictatorship by Belgians, but Zina seems to dismiss Tania's advice.
Tania is caught, but she tells Ivan to run. She refuses to tell her name, hoping to be released after 5 months, as she is told by another illegal. Ivan comes to live with Zina.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2268308. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2010.
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This entry incorporates text from “Illegal (2010 film)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.