The producer and distributor of French police violence drama After The Fire, which world premiered in Toronto’s Discovery line-up this year, say the film’s theatrical release has been damaged by a right-wing smear campaign.
Moves against the picture include a push to lower the work’s public score on cinema website Allociné (France’s equivalent to a Rotten Tomatoes rating), as well as the spread of disinformation around the production by right-leaning outlets such as CNews, which is France’s GB News or Fox News.
The drama stars popular singer and actress Camélia Jordana as a woman seeking justice after her younger brother dies in suspicious circumstances in police custody.
It is the first feature of Mehdi Fikri who spent a decade working as a reporter covering social conflict and the issues of police violence and justice in France’s notoriously deprived out-of-town suburbs.
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