| The Round Up | |
|---|---|
French poster |
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| Directed by | Roselyne Bosch |
| Produced by | Alain Goldman |
| Written by | Roselyne Bosch |
| Starring |
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| Cinematography | David Ungaro |
| Editing by | Plantin Alice |
| Distributed by |
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| Release date(s) | 10 March 2010 |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | € 20,000,000 |
| Box office | € 25,097,060 |
The Round Up (French: La Rafle) is a 2010 French film directed by Roselyne Bosch and produced by Alain Goldman. The film stars Mélanie Laurent, Jean Reno, Sylvie Testud and Gad Elmaleh. Based on the true story of a young Jewish boy, the film depicts the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv), the mass arrest of Jews by French police who were Nazi accomplices in Paris in July 1942.[1]
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Jo Weisman, a young Jewish Parisian, and his family are taken by the Nazis and Vichy collaborators in the rafle du Vel' d'Hiv. Anna Traube, a 20 year old woman, walks out of the velodrome with forged papers; her mother and sister are captured. Annette Monod, a Protestant nurse, volunteers for the velodrome, and assists Jewish doctor David Sheinbaum. From the Vélodrome d'Hiver Jo's family and Sheinbaum are transferred to Beaune-la-Rolande. Monod comes along.
The parents are dispatched by train to supposed "work camps in the East" (in reality the extermination camps), and Sheinbaum too. Monod wants to come along, but Sheinbaum talks her out of that. After some time authorities announce that for humanitarian reasons the children will be united with their parents in the east (in reality the adults have already been killed, and they are now going to kill the children). Some children believe they will rejoin their parents. However, Jo and another boy, Pavel, escape under barbed wire, taking along money that the family had hidden in the toilets along with their valuables.
After the war Monod searches for survivors at the Hôtel Lutetia. She finds Jo, who has survived and is to be adopted by a family, and a younger boy Noé, to whom she had also been close; he had somehow slipped out of the group of children taken away on the train to the extermination camps.
The plot features several real people, including Jo Weisman and Anna Traube; in the film her mother and sister are captured, in real life they also escaped to join their father in Limoges. Another real character is Annette Monod. Dr. David Sheinbaum, played by Jean Reno, is a synthesis of more than one doctor.
Bosch first decided to make a film of the events surrounding the rafle du Vel' d'Hiv because she felt sympathy with the victims. Her husband's family is Jewish and lived in Montmartre near where the Weismann family lived.[2] Her father had been detained in one of Francisco Franco's internment camps, so she felt a connection with the subject matter. She began extensively researching the events surrounding the round up and discovered survivor Joseph Weismann and Annette Monod whose memories would eventually form the base of the script. Bosch decided to portray only real life characters in the film and cast Gad Elmaleh in the role of Joseph's father, Schmuel Weismann. Initially, Elmaleh was hesitant to accept a serious dramatic role, but after reading the script he agreed to play the role. Actress Mélanie Laurent was cast in the role of the Red Cross worker Annette Monod, who was named a Righteous Among the Nations for her efforts during and after the round up.[3]
Shooting began in May 2009 and lasted for 13 weeks. 9,000 extras were used and facsimiles of the Vélodrome d'hiver and a concentration camp were reconstructed in Hungary for the film.[4]
The French premiere took place on 10 March 2010. The film also opened in Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland on the same day. It is scheduled to release in late 2010 in the UK and the US.[5]
The Round Up opened in first place in its opening weekend, ranking ahead of Shutter Island at the French box office.[5]
The DVD of The Round Up was released in France on 7 September 2010.