Moviehole has 10 double passes to catch ”Welcome”, Philippe Loret’s new film, in advance screenings from March 26 to March 28, thanks to Palace Films.

Twenty-two miles of water — the distance from Calais to Dover — prevent Bilal (Firat Ayverdi), a young Iraqi Kurd, from rejoining his sweetheart, Mina (Derya Ayverdi), in England, where he dreams of becoming a famous professional footballer. Bilal is befriended by Simon (Vincent Lindon), a fiftysomething former swimming champion who works as an instructor at the Calais town pool. Simon agrees to train Bilal so that he can swim across the Channel.

Simon hopes in this way to impress and possibly win back his estranged wife, Marion (Audrey Dana), an English teacher who helps run an unofficial soup kitchen for the hundreds of illegal immigrants who cluster around the port, all of them hoping to smuggle themselves one way or another into England to seek a better life.

He soon finds himself in trouble not just with his uptight neighbors, who object to his offering Bilal shelter for the night, but also with a local police inspector (Olivier Rabourdin), who points out that he faces a possible prison sentence of up to five years if found guilty of aiding an illegal immigrant.

To Win : Tell us what award “Welcome” won at the Lumiere Awards this year?