Gatlif chose David Murgia as Tom Medina, a young man who appears on parole at the door of Ulisses (Slimane Dazi), the man who will try to help him to follow a course in life. He dreams of becoming a good person, but the general hostility thrown at him will make his task difficult: "I like David Murgia a lot and he reminds me a little of what I used to be. Not physically, because I didn't want it to be just an autobiographical story at all. I think that kind of biographical films are a bit of a trap, that trap us [creatively], a little like historical films. David expresses a lot of feelings and is always full of movements and mannerisms. I was a bit like that." Going back to his teenage years, the director remembers when he arrived in France in the 1960s, lost his parents and got involved in petty robberies. "Evidently and after 2 or 3 years of this, the police arrested me and I entered the justice route, in the delinquent centers. That's what changed my life. In one of these centers I met a formidable man, a teacher I greatly respected. I listened to him and respected him. Before that he didn't respect anyone, because society didn't either. Only from that point did I realize what it was like to be a man in society, to have a role in it. It was thanks to this that I found myself in Camargue. In my criminal file, the judge read that he was someone who loved horses. In fact, that's what I said in a huge questionnaire when I was arrested. In that detention center, they read that too and my master put me to work with horses. I started to be very impressed with a 'cowboy' that was there that looked like Charles Bronson (laughs). He had a scar on his face and he was very tough. He was someone I respected a lot. As I was in Camargue, I also respected the region. He loved the whole wild environment, the horses and other animals. The Camargue saved me from the savagery of men. It was there that I found myself and also came face to face with a country that is not France. No, it's not France. This is a free, wild place, but evidently also with rules. France is Paris, the Côte d'azur. This was not this France. Camargue became my imaginary country, where I could be calm."
