With: Lou de Laâge (Mathilde), Agata Buzek (Sister Maria), Agata Kulesza (Mother Abbess), Vincent Macaigne (Samuel), Joanna Kulig (Irena), Eliza Rycembel (Teresa), Anna Prochniak (Zofia), Katarzyna Dabrowska (Anna), Helena Sujecka (Ludwika), Dorota Kuduk (Wanda), Klara Bielawka (Joanna), Mira Maludzinska (Bibiana), Pascal Elso (Colonel), Thomas Coumans (Gaspard), Leon Natan-Paszek (Wladek), Joanna Fertacz (Zofia’s aunt)
Director: Anne Fontaine
Producers: Eric Altmayer, Nicolas Altmayer
Production co: Mandarin Cinéma, Aeroplan Film, Mars Film, France 2 Cinéma, Scope Pictures
Screenplay: Sabrina B. Karine, Alice Vial, Anne Fontaine, Pascal Bonitzer, Philippe Maynial
Photography: Caroline Champetier
Editor: Annette Dutertre
Music: Grégoire Hetzel
REVIEWS

Anne Fontaine’s (Coco avant Chanel) compelling and affecting drama The Innocents illuminates events that occurred in Poland in the aftermath of World War II, placing women’s experiences of war very much at its centre.  Mathilde (Lou de Laâge), a young doctor with the French Red Cross, is entreated by a desperate young nun to make a secret visit to a nearby abbey.  She arrives to find a young sister in labour.  Mathilde is soon drawn into the intensely private world of the nuns as they confide the nightmare of the ‘liberating’ army that led to their predicament.  Severely traumatised, some have refused to admit even to themselves that they are pregnant.  Concealing her involvement from the Red Cross, Mathilde seeks allies in the convent where many remain cowed by a grim hierarchy determined to suppress all evidence of their ‘shame’.  She also enlists the support of a colleague, a Jewish doctor whose hopes of impressing her must outweigh his bitter scepticism about Polish Catholic piety.

Elegantly shot and superbly performed in Polish and French, Fontaine’s war film eschews graphic depictions of violence to delineate and uphold the common humanity of those who foster renewal in its wake.

​“The Innocents is a lovely ode to healing through solidarity…  Kudos are due to Anne Fontaine for not only finding a tale not often seen, but imbuing it with a feminine perspective so often erased from wartime narratives…  We’ve held up many wartime heroes from this era, and this unsung heroine deserves to be celebrated among them.”

— Monica Castillo, RogerEbert.com
FILM SOCIETY SCREENINGS

Dunedin
Wednesday, 28 February, 7:30pm

Auckland
Monday, 26 March, 6:30pm

New Plymouth
Wednesday, 18 April, 6:00pm

Palmerston North
Monday, 30 April, 6:00pm

Nelson
Thursday, 24 May, 6:00pm

Waitati
Tuesday, 23 October, 8:00pm

Tauranga
Wednesday, 31 October, 6:15pm
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Whanganui
Monday, 19 November, 7:00pm
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