On the night of 16 July 1942, ten year old Sarah and her parents are being arrested and transported to the Velodrome d'Hiver in Paris where thousands of other jews are being sent to get deported. Sarah however managed to lock her little brother in a closet just before the police entered their apartment. Sixty years later, Julia Jarmond, an American journalist in Paris, gets the assignment to write an article about this raid, a black page in the history of France. She starts digging archives and through Sarah's file discovers a well kept secret about her own in-laws.
Acting
Mélusine Mayance's eyes will haunt you forever.
Writing
Elegant weaving of two timelines, one crushing revelation.
Production
Vel d'Hiv recreation feels almost too authentic.
Director
Gilles Paquet-Brenner
Kristin Scott Thomas
Julia Jarmond
Mélusine Mayance
Sarah Starzynski, child
Niels Arestrup
Jules Dufaure
Frédéric Pierrot
Bertrand Tezac
Michel Duchaussoy
Edouard Tezac
Dominique Frot
Genneviève Dufaure
Natasha Mashkevich
Rywka Starzynski
Gisèle Casadesus
Mamé Tezac
Aidan Quinn
William Rainsferd
Sarah Ber
Rachel
Arben Bajraktaraj
Wladyslaw Starzynski
James Gerard
Mike Bambers
Joseph Rezwin
Joshua
Kate Moran
Alexandra
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The Vel d'Hiv roundup was denied by France for decades; President Chirac finally acknowledged state complicity in 1995. This film helped many French families confront silence around collaboration.
Kristin Scott Thomas, fluent in French, insisted on minimal makeup for the final scenes to show Julia's emotional devastation. The Dufaure farm still exists in rural France.
FR
