Deauville (AFP)

An actress and international boxer of Amerindian origin presented Wednesday at the Deauville festival, a film which denounces the trafficking of Amerindian women in the United States, "Cath the fair one".

"We wanted to shed light on what happens every day to Amerindians (...), the disappearances and murders of indigenous women who have plagued my people since the dawn of colonization," said the main actress and co-writer of the film Kali Reis, who is also a world famous boxer.

This thriller, which is one of the 13 films in competition at the Deauville American Film Festival (North), is due out soon in France on a date that has not yet been set.

Kaylee, 29, is a boxer known to fans of the sport, unloved by her mother, and upset by the disappearance of her younger sister Weeta.

It does not take long for her to realize that she has been kidnapped by a vast network of prostitution of all young Amerindian girls.

Gnawed by the guilt of having let her little sister go home one day alone, she decides to infiltrate this network to find her.

Despite her age as a "grandmother" in the eyes of pimps, she discovers how young girls are forcibly drugged before being transported in trucks and being offered as prostitutes in a coded way on the internet.

"We researched the subject for four years. We combined articles, reports, documentaries and Kali went to reservations to meet families who had lost loved ones," said director Josef Kubota. Wladyka during discussions with the public.

"We wanted this film as a kind of allegory of violence against Native Americans (...), like a punch in the stomach that forces you to sit down to think," he added.

Boxing "is the perfect representation" of what the character "does outside the ring" by infiltrating the network to look for his sister, added Kali Reis.

"For 13 years that I have been a professional boxer, what I have done is just to do what I can to raise awareness of this serious problem", also explained the young Métis woman.

Difficult to translate, the title "Catch the fair one" means both "if you want to fight, fight against someone of your level", and "catch the right person", implied "find Weeta" .

The president of the jury, the French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, is to announce the winners on Saturday evening.

© 2021 AFP