"Welcome," the French film that has the country in a controversy over its laws concerning illegal immigrants, is set in Calais, a port city in northern France. It tells the tale of Bilal, a 17-year-old Kurd from northern Iraq who asks a local swimming instructor for lessons. The kid wants to train for an excruciating swim across the channel to Britain, where he hopes to emerge from the water to start his new life. The instructor, played by high-profile French actor Vincent Lindon, agrees to the deal in order to win back his left-wing wife.

If you think that sounds unrealistic, think again.

Calais indeed is a migrant hot spot, for one main reason: In France, it's as close as you can get to Britain. The city overlooks the Strait of Dover, which, at 21 miles wide, is the narrowest point in the channel. Calais is home to a migrant camp nicknamed "The Jungle" that houses several hundred fugitives hoping to make their way across the channel. While they usually try to get to Britain via boat or by hiding in a truck driving through the underwater railway tunnel, there indeed have been attempts by migrants to actually swim through the channel.

"Welcome" picks out as a central theme a very real French law -- one that criminalizes those who help illegal migrants enter or stay in the country. The repercussions for breaking this law are drastic: Assisting anyone without papers might be punished by up to five years in prison and a maximum fine of $41,000. The law does not make a distinction between people working for human-trafficking rings and, for example, the average Frenchman acting out of sheer kindness -- fraternite, if you will.

The heartfelt film, which opened to rave reviews in France after winning an award at the Berlin International Film Festival earlier this year, has begun to erode public support for said law.

French lawmakers even debated it after the film was screened in Parliament; representatives from the Socialist Party have since argued that people helping out of good will should not be criminalized.

Hard-line French Immigration Minister Eric Besson, however, so far has not wavered. Rather, he recently announced that he wanted to close the migrant camp in Calais until the end of the year, as it has become somewhat of an embarrassment for French authorities.

Calais residents have long complained about the squatter camp, with the local mayor urging Paris to act. The French government has since set up a "welcome center" to help migrants seeking asylum in France, but the effect has been minimal. Britain's Daily Mail newspaper reports that on its first business day, the center failed to get a single inquiry. Observers say that's because the migrants, often from countries in Africa or from Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, want to reach Britain, using France only as a pit stop. But said stop has recently been prolonged, mainly because British authorities have boosted border controls, making crossings of the channel increasingly difficult.

Illegal immigration is a hot topic in Europe, with France and Spain, another country that is boosting border controls to ward off fugitives, recently agreeing to increase cooperation on immigration.

In France, the debate on the controversial law is set to continue. And it's safe to say that the French are likely to be moved by movies -- even politically.

In 2006, Rachid Bouchareb, a French director of Algerian origin, won appraise for his film "Days of Glory." Less than a year after French youths with an immigrant background had rioted in the suburbs, Bouchareb reminded the country with his film that more than 200,000 soldiers from the French colonies in northern Africa had helped free France from the Nazis during World War II.

That post-war pensions paid to these soldiers often were only a third of what their colleagues from the motherland received at the time angered first lady Bernadette Chirac so much that she urged her president husband, Jacques, to do something about it.

That same year, Paris decided to boost pensions of the North African soldiers.

The people involved in "Welcome" hope for similar effects.

"I hope it changes things in France," Lindon, who plays the swimming instructor, told The New York Times. "I never do a film for political reasons, but if this article disappeared thanks to the film -- and it has to -- it would be a source of pride."

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