A new movie that throws light on the plight of refugees in Calais longing for a new life in Britain caused a political storm in France. Peter Calder spoke to its director in Paris.
French director Philippe Lioret couldn't have been happier that his new film Welcome made him very unpopular with the Minister of Immigration in Paris.
"Minister of Immigration and National Identity," says Lioret, leaning forward to emphasise the extra words and underline his disgust at them. But he agrees that being in the minister's bad books is very good news indeed.
The minister in question, Eric Besson, was dubbed "the most hated man in France" by the weekly magazine Marianne, a fervent critic of the Sarkozy Government. His full title - Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity and Solidarity Development - is even worse and, say his critics, he interprets his remit as fostering a national debate that cynically stigmatises minorities and immigrants.
Little wonder, then, that he didn't care for Lioret's ironically titled drama which addresses head-on the plight of the stateless refugees who crowd squatter camps in Calais on France's north coast. The intelligent, moving and morally complex film is about the unlikely friendship that develops between a swimming coach and a Kurdish teenager who wants to emigrate to Britain. But the depiction of the treatment of the refugees - French citizens are barred by law from so much as buying them a sandwich or giving them a lift - is not a pretty one.
"Besson asked me to go on TV and talk about the film with him," says Lioret. "He said he wanted to 'clarify matters'.
"And then he told me 'You did a great job with the film but it is only fiction'. I said 'I beg your pardon. This is not fiction. This is the exact reality'.
Indeed, staff of NGOs who work with the refugees - most of whom come from Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan - have been widely reported as saying that Welcome understates the reality, an assessment Lioret takes as a compliment.
"It was a conscious decision to understate it. I just wanted it to be true. I had to show the reality. If I had overwritten it or overstated it or overacted it, it would have been too easy to dismiss."
In fact, he did not set out with the intention of making a politically charged film, he says.
"When I first put my nose into the problem at Calais I thought it is like the Mexican border - full of drama. That was what excited me. And I went there and met immigrants and volunteers and lived with them for 10 days and met a young Kurdish guy who wanted to join his girlfriend in England. I heard of another who wanted to cross by swimming - he must have never arrived in England because he never phoned which is what everyone does when they cross by truck or boat. And that is how the story began."
Lioret says he was aware of the refugee crisis in Calais before he began research for the film but "I was not inside it".
"I saw it on the TV, but it gets replaced by another problem and disappears off the public radar. I think with a feature film, you can get the audience to identify with the characters and, if it moves you to tears, this will be a reaction that lasts."
A move to amend the legislation by the insertion of four words so that it would be a crime to help an illegal "for purposes of profit" was scuttled by bloc voting by right-wing MPs who did not even attend the debate. Nonetheless, the film - a box office hit in France - caused public and press uproar when it was released a year ago. Yet Lioret does not feel proud of that achievement. "I cannot be proud because nothing has changed. And I cannot be proud of my film while I am so ashamed of my country."
LOWDOWN
Who: Philippe Lioret, director
What: Welcome
When: Screening at cinemas now
