“Be a bridge!” Those are the Turkish teacher’s last words to the Bosnian boy he’s just pulled out of a surging torrent, before he dives back into the river to reach a second pupil. Seconds earlier, the two teenagers had been locked together – Muslim v Orthodox Christian, a knife hovering between them. But the teacher, doggy-paddling against the current, knows that religion makes no difference when lives are at stake. There’s a message from on high (and we’re not talking Allah) about the dangers of division between men: overhead is Sarajevo’s Latin Bridge, where Archduke Franz Ferdinand received his fateful 1914 gunshot.

Turkish religious hit Selam certainly doesn’t shy away from the grand gesture. That’s the climax to one of its three stories, which all focus on the altruistic deeds of pious teachers in different countries; in the other two segments, two lovers find themselves a world apart in Senegal and Afghanistan. The first Turkish work to be shot on three different continents, it was No 1 in that country for five weeks through April, taking nearly $8m so far.

But don’t mistake Selam for a mere local concern. It may come in a Turkish flavour, but didactic and cheesy though it is, it’s also internationalist in scope, a kind of Muslim Babelaiming outwards at the world. It has a proselytising zeal, dramatising missionary work and partaking itself by making a case for Islamic values in life. The Gülen movement – the progressive, possibly political, network that some people now rate as the most influential Muslim faith organisation worldwide – provided locations and casting support. And Selam is one of several projects currently aiming to make a piercing statement on behalf of Islam with cinemal, a medium – because of the nature of image-making – with which this religious tradition arguably has compatibility issues.

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