Chilling prophecy: French film about jihadi rampage in capital
A CONTROVERSIAL film with chilling echoes of the terrorist attacks on Paris has been withdrawn just days before it was due to open in French cinemas.
Made In France tells the story of a Muslim journalist who infiltrates a jihadist cell in the Paris suburbs. The cell’s aim is to destabilise the city with terror, and there are scenes showing Islamic extremists firing on French police.
When it premiered at the Busan Film Festival in South Korea under the title Inside The Cell last month, it was billed as ‘a daring investigation thriller that plunges you inside the extremist Muslim groups that grow inside Western countries and can strike at any moment’.
Filmed over the summer of 2014, it had already provoked controversy with provocative posters which feature an AK-47 assault rifle superimposed over the Eiffel Tower. The caption read: ‘The threat comes from inside.’
Written and directed by Nicolas Boukhrief, the drama was due to be released in around 100 cinemas next Wednesday.
A statement issued yesterday morning by producers Radar Films and the distributor Pretty Pictures, read: ‘Following the tragic events of last night, the distributor and producer immediately decided to postpone the film’s release to a later date.’
It is the second time the release has been delayed. It was originally set to open in French cinemas earlier this year, but was pulled after the attacks on satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January, where 12 people were killed and 11 seriously injured. A further series of attacks in the Ile-de-France region raised yet more concerns over the sensitivity of the subject matter.
Now Pretty Pictures, which bought the rights to the film after the first distributors abandoned the project, has been forced to make the same decision, fearing that the fictional events in the movie are too horribly close to the real life tragedy.
Paris transport authority RATP also removed the film’s provocative posters from its network yesterday.