LA RAFLE

From newsreel footage of Adolf Hitler on the backdrop of a newly conquered Paris, we are transported to picturesque Montmarte, where three children wearing a yellow star play in seeming oblivion of what awaits. Their parents don’t seem too worried either, somehow putting their trust in the Vichy government. But beyond their view, much is going on. Hitler demands that the French government round up its Jews and put them on trains for the extermination camps in the East. The collaborators start to put the plan into effect and within a short time, 13,000 of Paris’s Jews, among them 4,000 children, will be rounded up and sent on a road with no return. The fateful date: July 1942. Exactly 68 years ago.
In La Rafle., Rose Bosch unravels one of the most moving dramas of the year. The meticulously constructed script, based on in-depth research and actual stories, succeeds in setting off our tear ducts at all the right moments. With fluid direction and a string of stars—from Jean Reno and Gad Elmaleh to Mיlanie Laurent (Inglourious Basterds and The Concert)—La Rafle became a box-office hit in France in the first half of 2010, and its audiences included thousands of young people who came to find out about a dark chapter in their country’s history.