SAFE CONDUCT

Paris, March 3rd, 1942. The Continental, a German cinema company run by Doctor Greven, which has been producing French films since 1940, mirrors the trap in which the country is already ensnared : can one carry on working there as if nothing has changed, "between the wolfs teeth, where he cannot bite you", or should one refuse to collaborate, and leave? The film is woven with memories and traces the journeys of two men whose fates are intertwined. The first, Jean-Devaivre (Jacques Gamblin), an assistant director, purposely joins the Continental, seeing it as a way of camouflaging his clandestine resistance activities. He is a man of action, reckless, impulsive and daring. The other, Jean Aurenche (Denis Podalydes), a script-writer-cum-poet, struggles to refuse any offers of work from the Germans. He is a reserved, insatiable, inquisitive man, torn between his three mistresses, above all a witness who begins to resist when he picks up his pen to write. Around them revolve dozens of other characters, both submissive and rebellious. Some fight, others collaborate, but in occupied France, everyone struggles against hunger, cold and restrictions in order just to survive. This film is dedicated to those who lived through this time.