[14] In 2012, he screened his short film African Race at Les Pépites du Cinéma in La Courneuve, a festival sponsored by Michel Gondry.

[16] Shot in Sicily,[17] the Italian-language film recounts the journey of a French baker who fights to bury his murdered brother in a Sicilian village which forbids him from doing so.

[23] Shot in French, it stars Shahidi as a policeman consumed by guilt who works in the Château Rouge neighbourhood of Paris when his neighbor is allegedly kidnapped by a slumlord.

[24] Paolini drew inspiration from French comics, including those by Charles Burns, Lewis Trondheim, Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Larcenet.

[27] Critics praised Karmapolice,[28][29][30][31] and saw it as "the legacy of a certain New York underground cinema, from early Scorsese to the Safdie brothers, via Lynch's Blue Velvet".