A French screenwriter drew wide applause when his film highlight anti-Arab mentality in the West debuted at Cannes Film Festival.
The film, "Les Cowboys," focuses around a girl Kelly who leaves her small French town to run away with her Arab boyfriend. After the film, award winning screenwriter Thomas Bidegain says that he created a modern day American Western, but replaced Native Americans with Arabs.
Focusing first on when Kelly runs away and then afterwards, 10 years later when her brother continues the search, the movie, while dealing with issues such as jihad, focuses on the loss of a daughter more than anything else.
"I think the message that it gives, although I don't know if there is any really, is something about acceptance or reconciliation. The father figure thinks he's a cowboy, and the Arabs are Indians and he will chase them. Later on, his son has opened up to the world. So there's a message of tolerance," Bidegain told VICE.
And maybe that is why the film suceeded. Instead of overtly focusing on a very real concept like jihad, it instead looked at relationships and families and loyalties and all the other things that make the world tick.
Check out the (French) trailer below.