‘A Prophet’ creator takes on the war in Algeria

One of France’s most celebrated screenwriters is taking on its biggest taboo, the bloody conflict in Algeria, in a new war film.

Abdel Raouf Dafri told AFP that he had been itching for years to broach the delicate subject.

The writer of the Oscar-nominated “A Prophet,” and the Emmy-winning television series “Braquo,” has Algerian roots but was born in the French port of Marseille.

The film’s title “May an impure blood...” is plucked from the most controversial line in the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” which ends “...water our fields.”

His story centers on a group of French conscript soldiers sent on a “grotesque mission that none of them want to go on.

“When you make a film about World War II, you know who the good guys are,” the writer said.