How to make a film about a national tragedy, about a wound that is not yet healed? “L’Abandon” is a tense, unforgiving film that retraces the 11 days that preceded the murder of Samuel Paty. At the beginning of October 2020, Samuel Paty, a history and geography teacher, addressed freedom of expression and press freedom in his classes. To do so, he used caricatures from “Charlie Hebdo,” including those of the Prophet Muhammad, as part of the teaching materials provided to teachers for these lessons. In one of these classes with the ninth graders, he asked Muslim students who might be offended to leave for a few minutes to project these images. A girl, who was not present that day, later recounted that the teacher asked Muslim students to leave, she protested, and was then sent out of the classroom; this is where the fire started. “L’Abandon” shows and analyzes how the fire was fueled on one hand and never extinguished on the other.
[Context: The film “L’Abandon” delves into the events leading up to the murder of Samuel Paty, a teacher in France who was killed for showing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad in a class discussion on free speech.]
[Fact Check: The film was released on May 13th and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on the same day.]
[Fact Check: The screenplay of the film is by Vincent Garenq and Alexis Kebbas, based on the book “Les derniers jours de Samuel Paty” by Stéphane Simon.]
