Music Box Films is proud to announce the release of MEMOIR OF WAR, Emmanuel Finkiel's haunting adaptation of seminal author Marguerite Duras’s autobiographical novel “The War: A Memoir” starring Mélanie Thierry (The Princess of Montpensier) in a riveting performance as Duras. An emotionally complex story of love, loss, and perseverance against the backdrop of war, MEMOIR OF WAR is scheduled to open in New York on August 17 at Film Forum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, followed by a national roll out.
It’s 1944 and Duras is an active Resistance member along with her husband, the writer Robert Antelme and a band of fellow subversives in Nazi-occupied Paris. When Antelme is deported to Dachau by the Gestapo, she enters into a high-risk game of psychological cat and mouse with French Nazi collaborator Rabier (Benoît Magimel) to learn of her husband’s whereabouts. But as the months wear on without news of her husband, Duras must begin the process of confronting the unimaginable. Through subtly expressionistic images and voiceover passages of Duras’s writing, Finkiel evokes the inner world of one of the 20th century’s most revolutionary writers.
Marguerite Duras, a philosopher and intellectual of daunting reputation, was a highly successful novelist, memoirist, screenwriter, essayist and experimental filmmaker. Her script for Alain Resnais’ classic Hiroshima, Mon Amour, earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. She went on to write over 30 novels and direct 19 films. Duras won the Prix Goncourt (France’s most distinguished literary prize) for “The Lover.” “The War: A Memoir” ("La Douleur") was written in 1944 and first published in 1985. The book has been translated and released in over 20 countries.
Award-winning writer-director Emmanuel Finkiel began his career as an assistant director to Bertrand Tavernier, Krzysztof Kieslowski and Jean-Luc Godard. His first outing as a filmmaker, Madame Jacques on the Croisette, won a César Award for Best Short Film. His first feature length film, Voyages, which follows the travels of three elderly Jewish women whose lives were touched by the Holocaust, earned him two César Awards (Best First Film and Best Editing) and the Youth Award in Cannes. In 2008, he won the prestigious Jean Vigo Award for Nowhere Promised Land which debuted at the Locarno Film Festival. He has also directed documentaries including Casting (2001) and Je Suis (2012).
“Melanie Thierry leaps towards the front echelon of current French actresses with her riveting turn as Marguerite Duras.” — Neil Young, Hollywood Reporter
“It’s finally a communal film, serving Duras’ conviction that the Holocaust belongs to all.” — Guy Lodge, Variety
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