During the cowboy festival, Alain’s family had a lot of fun, singing and dancing. At dusk, Alain finds his daughter Kelly has disappeared and reports it to the police. But later it’s discovered that Kelly willfully ran away with her Muslim boyfriend. Not convinced, Alain searches for her, wandering Yemen and Syria, on his own. Years pass, and Kelly’s younger brother George (or “Kid”), now grown up, inherits his father’s search and heads to Syria and Afghanistan to find his sister. Cowboy is a Western drama loosely based on John Ford’s The Searchers, with some modifications, like the Christianity vs. Islam conflict. The unique scenario to explore Christian racism and prejudice with a girl converted to Islam at the center is extraordinary, and the story seems like a metaphor about life with its unhurried on-and-off continuation. This is the directorial debut work by renowned screenwriter Thomas Bidegain, author of A Prophet by Jacques Audiard and Saint Laurent by Bertran Bonello. The film is screening at Busan after its presentation at Director’s Fortnight at Cannes. (RHEE Soue-won)