Arriving in France from Israel in 1968, the Maimons join scores of other Algerian and Tunisian Jewish families in Paris’ burgeoning Belleville district. Good-hearted Felix (Gad Elmaleh) reluctantly begins a life of crime to provide for his wife Mireille (Yael Abecassis) and sons, until he meets Sephardi gangster Serge (Richard Berry), from the same village as Mireille. Serge treats the Maïmons as kin, but has bigger plans for Felix’s criminal career.

Told from the point of view of 11-year-old Michel (Jules-Angelo Bigarnet), Father’s Footsteps is a captivating study in loss of innocence and the power of ethnic allegiance, set against the backdrop of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In an eerie subplot, Michel stumbles upon an abandoned hideaway littered with Nazi relics, bringing the past and present face to face. Elmaleh and Abecassis are exceptional as the beleaguered parents in this classy debut from Israeli director Marco Carmel.