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Early last year, filmmaker Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar read a news story about a young French man desperately looking for his sister who had left home to join ISIS in Syria. The director could not understand what would motivate a teenage girl to do such a thing.

“With boys we can refer to conventional images of war and weapons to explain it,” she said, “you can see how this could be the attraction. But for girls, what could possibly tempt them?”

Something is tempting them. According to the French Ministry of the Interior, 700 French citizens, including 280 women (half of whom are converts to Islam), are currently active with ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Another thousand people in France are said to be willing to join ISIS.  

So, Mention-Schaar set out to make a film about the phenomenon, enlisting the help of a big star, Sandrine Bonnaire, who plays the mother of a teenage girl. Filming began on Nov. 16 last year, three days after the Paris attacks, which gave the film a renewed sense of urgency.

Actor and director Sandrine Bonnaire delivers a speech to support Martine Aubry (not pictured), one of the two Socialist Party presidential primary election candidates in France, at a political rally in Lille, northern France, on Oct. 13, 2011.

Pascal Rossignol/Reuters

In a scene set at a fast food restaurant, Melanie tries to convince her schoolmates that the Sept. 11 attacks were staged by mysterious entities in order to manipulate public opinion about Muslims.

She demonstrates that some dollar bills, when folded a specific way, reveal hidden messages about the twin towers, proving, in her mind, that the attack was planned ages ago. But her friends make fun of her, saying she is paranoid.

Melanie plunges deeper into fanaticism. She secretly converts to Islam, stops playing the cello and refuses to eat her mother’s cooking.

The other protagonist, 17-year-old Sonia, played by Noémie Merlant, is also a teenager from a nonreligious family. After her failed attempts to leave for Syria and help prepare an attack on French soil, she is placed under house arrest. And her rehabilitation struggle takes a huge toll on the family.

“Le Ciel Attendra” was released in October and has been touted as a beneficial tool for raising awareness. Nadia Remadna works to prevent radicalization in Sevran outside Paris where she’s seen many youth leave for Syria. She says the film carries an important message.

"I thought that this film was interesting because it says that radicalization is not exclusively an issue for young Muslims in underprivileged neighborhoods,” she said, “and that, unfortunately, it’s everyone’s problem, Catholic families, atheist families ... it concerns everybody.”

France’s minister of education, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, agrees. In fact, she has been pushing for the film to be shown in high schools across the country.

“I thought this was a strong and remarkable film,” she said, “and I’d even suggest it’s beneficial to the public at large because the characters give clues to understanding certain weaknesses that could allow radicalization to take over, even in unsuspecting lives.”

But some critics think the film’s emphasis is misplaced. Journalist Alexandre Devecchio of Le Figaro, says the film, by focusing on non-Muslim girls who convert to Islam, ignores the reality of radicalization in France. He wrote that the filmmaker embraced a “Care Bears vision of Islam.”

At a recent screening in central Paris, however, the audience was impressed. Students from local high schools, including senior Clara Jestin, said they loved the film.

"I was really moved,” Jestin said. “I found many answers. I don’t know anyone who became radicalized, but you hear so much about it with the terrorist attacks, it was good to learn something.”

A mother in the audience said she thought the helplessness and despair of the parents in the film felt authentic. That included a heart-wrenching scene in which devastated parents confront authorities to ask them what they’ve done to find their daughter in Syria.

“What’s my country doing for my daughter, and for all the kids who are about to turn, or to leave?” this mother asks. “Are we all waiting for them to croak? They deserved it, right?”

At the screening, Mention-Schaar told the audience she meant for her film to be used as prevention.

“The film also takes stock of what’s happening in our society,” she says. “What’s [going on] today with youth who are loved, have a comfortable life, friends and an education? What have we missed, what can we do better to prevent this or other deadly phenomena to take root into youth? All these questions are very important for me in the film.”

The film’s end credits display a French government toll-free number and web address. It’s a helpline and link to a new interactive campaign against radicalization — a stark reminder that fiction can only go so far in addressing the magnitude of France’s problems with terror and extremism.

From PRI's The World ©2016 PRI