Les Enfants de la Nuit
English Title
Children of the Night
Director
Caroline Deruas
Year
2011
Form
Short film
Duration
25 minutes
About
Les Enfants de la Nuit a film directed by Caroline Deruas with Yves Donval, Adèle Haenel, Arthur Igual and Felix M. Ott. Forbidden love amidst the French liberation through the lens of a modern woman.
Synopsis
Spring 1944. There are loves that are born as evidence. From their history, we cannot say that they ignored the fatal outcome, we can only say that it was inevitable.
Coming from a resistance family, Henriette saw the inconceivable: she fell in love with Josef, a young German soldier. Marcel, her childhood friend, secretly in love with her, discovers their story and joins the maquis* on the eve of liberation. When he returns, he will no longer be alone and they will wear the FFI armband**.
Explainer:
*Le maquis were rural guerrilla bands of French Resistance fighters, called maquisards, during Nazi occupation of France in World War 2.
**FFI armband: FFI=Forces Françaises de l’Intérieur. FFI refers to French resistance fighter in the later stages of WW2. They did not wear a uniform except for an armband that could be put on and taken off any time they were on active duty.
Festivals
- Festival international du court-métrage de Vila d'Conde (Portugal, 2012)
- Compétition internationale
- Festival international Cinema Jove de Valence (Espagne, 2012)
- Compétition internationale
- Festival des Nations d'Ebensee (Autriche, 2012)
- Compétition internationale
- Festival international du court-métrage de Nimègue (GShort) (Pays-Bas, 2012)
- Compétition européenne
- Festival Tous Courts d'Aix-en-Provence (France, 2011)
- Compétition internationale
- Festival international du film d'Abu Dhabi (Emirats arabes unis, 2011)
- Compétition internationale
- Festival du film de Locarn (Suisse, 2011)
- Compétition internationale
Awards
- Festival international du court-métrage de Vila dConde (Portugal, 2012)
- Prix du public compétition internationale
- Festival des Nations d'Ebensee (Autriche, 2012)
- Mention ours d'or
- Festival du film de Locarn(Suisse, 2011)
- Léopard d'argent compétition internationale
- Léopards de demain
Adèle’s role
Henriette, member of a Resistance family
Les Enfants de la Nuit
No English subtitles, but higher quality
Notes
This short film is much more polished and packaged than some of the short films we have been viewing. Like Adieu Molitor, this is more like a feature film, just shorter. This film has a feature film-like poster and has a press kit (https://medias.unifrance.org/medias/48/224/57392/presse/children-of-the-night-presskit-french.pdf).
The director Caroline Deraus and her cinematographer Pascale Marin will work with Adèle again on another project in a couple of years, which we will view in a few days.
From the director:
“There are many things in France that have not been said about the war; a lot of work that we haven't done compared to the Germans. At school we are told that we clearly followed the German women. And then there is the case of the shorn women who we haven't talked enough about. I do not feel a need for permanent feminism but immersing myself in their testimonies, I was overwhelmed by the humiliation they have carried all their lives. History has not done its job to rehabilitate them. I started writing the film when I met the German actor Felix M Ott. I’d had this idea for a long time, but I dared not get down to it. When I met Felix I found everything I was looking for in the character. I could make him say terrible things, he always remained bright, moving. The film talks about all these love stories that society has the right to prevent, the right to judge. The character of Henriette comes from the Resistance. When she comes across this young soldier who gives off something very beautiful and very sweet, which surprises her, she lets herself be approached by saying to himself that he is perhaps something more than a simple German soldier. What she says without ever pronouncing it is precisely: "It is not up to you to judge."
Caroline Deraus
(Translated by Google, tidied by me, so apologies for clunkiness. I’m sure it is more elegant in the original French.)
From a review:
"The Children of the Night approaches with sensitivity and intelligence the theme of women shorn at the end of the Second World War. The historical reconstruction does not interest the director, who deals with her subject but also wishes to speak of resistance (moral, aesthetic), to the present and not to the past, of love and perhaps of feminism. The film tells the love story in the French countryside between two young people who are all separated, an independent girl and a German soldier. Filmed in 35mm and in black and white, under the avowed influence of François Truffaut's cinema (mixture of fever and restraint, love for the characters and actors who interpret them, classic elegance of the staging) Les Enfants de la Nuit moves us, seduces us and invites us to wait with confidence and curiosity for Caroline Deruas to go from short to feature film, which will not be long.
https://www.arte.tv/sites/fr/olivierpere/2012/11/01/les-enfants-de-la-nuit-de-caroline-deruas/ , Olivier Père, November 1, 2012
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