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La Rafle

Directed by: Rose Bosch
115 Minutes, 2010, Drama; War

In picturesque Montmarte, three children wearing a yellow star play in the streets, oblivious to the darkness spreading over Nazi-occupied France. Their parents do not seem too concerned either, somehow putting their trust in the Vichy Government. But beyond this view, storm clouds are gathering. Hitler demands that the French government round up its Jews and put them on trains for the extermination camps in the East. And sooon the collaborators start to put the plan into effect, and within a short time, thirteen thousand of Parisian Jews—among them four thousand children—will be rounded up and sent on a road with no return. As the Nazis feed the children deceptions, two brave children and a nurse struggle to uncover the truth and escape from the terror.

Credits

Director: Rose Bosch

Producer: Jean-Robert Gibard

Producer: Alain Goldman

Producer: Catherine Morisse

Cast: Jean Reno

Cast: Mélanie Laurent

Cast: Gad Elmaleh

Written by: Rose Bosch

Distributor: Menemsha Films

Awards

“There is a deep and subtle power to the film; characters are developed and then we return to them, themes are presented and then refined. Each scene is striking; no moment seems superfluous, none inauthentic. But there is no subtlety to what is presented — the horror is layered, the intensity builds from scene to scene. And in the end, we have a powerful film that presents the truth of how the French treated their Jews. Roselyne Bosch has done her job. It is a film not to be missed.”

-Michael Berenbaum, The Jewish Journal of Los Angeles

“La Rafle brilliantly captures the horror of it all with enormous sensitivity, including the anguish of parents unable to protect their children, the distress of the very few who wanted but were unable to save the victims from their fate, and the cruelty of the French gendarmes… It not only forces us to confront the demons inherent in the human condition. It keeps open wounds that must never be allowed to fully heal.”

-Menachem Z. Rosensaft, The Washington Post (editorial)

“Writer-director Rose Bosch is working in unabashed historical epic mode here, balancing individual stories with grand-scale awfulness effectively. She never swerves for cheap sentiment, she just lays it all out.


-Tom Long, Detroit News