Film screening : Hélène Berr, a Young Woman in Occupied Paris A film by Jérôme Prieur

thursday 10 november 2016

Film duration: 1h05
Country of production: France
Production: Sophie Faudel, Mélisande Films
Released: 2013

Available in DVD and VOD – This documentary is based on the journal written by Hélène Berr, a young Jewish French woman, whose promising future was brutally cut short by Vichy Government’s laws and the extermination plan imagined by the Nazis.  Studying English Literature at Sorbonne University, Helene Berr was 21 years old when she began her journal.  We follow her steps through Paris under the German Occupation, perceiving the daily experience of the unbearable, oscillating between hope and despair, until her arrest and deportation to Auschwitz in 1944.

This exceptional testimony remained a family treasure for 60 years, before being published in 2008. Jérôme Prieur’s film draws on excerpts from the manuscript, archives, and sober reconstitutions. This film has received the support of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah (Foundation for the Remembrance of the Holocaust).

  • 2014 Etoile de la SCAM Award, France
  • 2014 Award for Best TV Documentary by the Syndicat Français de la Critique de Cinéma et des Films de Télévision (French Union for the Critic of Cinema and TV Films), France
  • 2013 Special Jury Award at the Rendez-Vous de l’Histoire de Blois, France
  • 2013 In Competition at the International History Film Festival of Pessac, France

This exhibition, curated by Karen Taieb and Sophie Nagiscarde, was designed, created, and circulated by Mémorial de la Shoah (Paris, France) and made possible through the generous support of SNCF.