Controversial Anti-Islamophobia Film Pulled from Major Paris Cinema Amid Far-Right Backlash

"Le Grand Rex is a commercial and family cinema. It is not intended to broadcast political or confessional films." This is how the Parisian cinema justifies its refusal to screen the preview of the film "Soumaya", directed by Waheed Khan and Ubaydah Abu-Usayd, with Soraya Hachoumi, Sarah Perriez, Khalid Berkouz. This decision by the Parisian cinema follows a campaign of denigration, led by the far-right sphere against the film.

"The blockage is always the same: religion. And it’s the same for the mainstream media, which have never been interested in our film," confides Ubaydah Abu-Usayd to StreetPress.

"Soumaya" is inspired by a true story and addresses several burning issues, including Islamophobia. The film tells the story of a manager named Soumaya. She has been working for a transportation company for 14 years. She learns, overnight, that she is being fired and discovers, the same evening on television, the reasons for her dismissal. "She then decides to exercise a very special right of reply," the synopsis points out.