, is inspired by the true story of Mehdi Meklat, a young man who grew up in a French project on the outskirt of Paris and became a star journalist and an author celebrated by France’s mainstream media and left-leaning intellectual circles. But in 2017, as Meklat reached the apogee of his success, he was publicly shut down and dropped by his publisher after his heinous tweets – written under a pseudonym before becoming famous — were revealed.
“Arthur Rambo” is produced by Marie-Ange Luciani at Les Films de Pierre, the outfit behind Robin Campillo’s Cannes’ Grand Prize winning “BPM ,” and co-produced by Alexandre Mallet-Guy at Memento Films Production and France 2 Cinéma. Underscoring its contemporary resonance, the movie has already been sold by Paris-based outfit Playtime in Canada , Brazil , Spain , Portugal , Scandinavia , Israel , Benelux , Switzerland , Turkey , and Taiwan .
Even if it only took six seconds on a phone’s keyboard, words are loaded and we often forget it when we want to be the first to react, or the most provocative, or win the best punchline. We’re not sure what Karim really thinks and believe in, whether he’s Arthur Rambo deep down, or his civilized alter-ego Karim.
It comes down to provocation, which leads to a form of extremism and simplication. Everything is about slogans. There’ve always been there and they’ve always led to extremism because in three words, it’s impossible to tackle the complexity of a thought-out speech. And also, these tweets are the expression of anger, and social networks feed the anger, the extremism and totalitarian way of thinking.