Documentary paying tribute to slain Charlie Hebdo cartoonists seeks buyers in Cannes

FILE - In this Sunday, Jan. 11, 2015 file photo, people walk past a sign reading "I Am Charlie" , during a rally in Paris. January's terrorist attack on the Paris offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continues to cast a shadow over France, and the Cannes Film Festival. One movie getting attention in the festival's movie marketplace is a documentary about the publication, "I Am Charlie." (AP Photo/Laurent Cipriani, File (The Associated Press)

CANNES, France – The terrorist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo continues to cast a shadow over France — and the Cannes Film Festival.

One movie getting attention in the festival's movie marketplace is a documentary about the publication, "I Am Charlie."

The film by father-and-son directors Daniel and Emmanuel Leconte is intended as a tribute to 11 staff from the taboo-defying magazine who were shot dead by attackers inspired by radical Islam. Six other people were killed in connected attacks by three gunmen.

The January attacks sparked a global outpouring of support for the magazine, with people around the world adopting the slogan "Je suis Charlie" — "I Am Charlie." It also spurred a debate about the limits of freedom of speech that saw some criticize the magazine's decision to run caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad that offended many Muslims.

The directors say Charlie Hebdo's journalists "were on the front line of a hazardous fight to defend what makes us what we are, deep down inside: freedom of speech, or even more so, freedom to laugh."

Paris-based Pyramide Films is marketing the movie in Cannes.

The elder Leconte, Daniel, made a documentary about Charlie Hebdo in 2008, when it was sued by Muslim associations for religious discrimination. Titled "It's Hard Being Loved by Jerks" after the caption on one of the magazine's Muhammad cartoons, it screened out of competition at Cannes in 2008.

— By Jill Lawless, http://Twitter.com/JillLawless