Safe Conduct

"One of the very best movies ever made about the life of moviemaking. Tavernier, whose passion for the legacy of his medium rivals Scorsese's, has grown into one of the world's vital humanist voices."--Michael Atkinson, Village Voice

Leading French director Bertrand Tavernier's latest work, Safe Conduct, is a stunning period piece about the French film industry during the Nazi occupation.

Set in Paris in 1942, Safe Conduct is based on the lives and careers of real individuals in the French film industry, specifically assistant director Jean Devaivre and screenwriter Jean Aurenche, who had to balance the horror of surviving under the Nazis with living their own lives, in and out of the Resistance.

As Tavernier notes, "Everybody at that time was on thin ice. They never knew what the next day would bring . . . there was always the danger of being rounded up or killed, all against the background of people trying to make movies for a German company."

The New York Times praised the film and Tavernier, who "stages the movie like a dance marathon, intelligently shifting the pace and scale of the drama." (170 mins.)