Keep Your Weekend Plans A Secret

Flipping through the news today, I came across this review for director Claude Miller's A Secret, now playing at IFC Center and The Paris Theater in New York City. (Don't worry all you non-New Yorkers: a national release is expected to follow!) A Secret tells the story of the Grimbert family who, before the war, were Grimberg. But even as the war ends and  a revival of French-Jewry is possible, the Grimberts continue to try to assimilate as Catholic, motivated by a dark secret that still hangs over the family six decades after the war.

Maybe it's because a film about Jews in France immediately made me think of our Némirovsky exhibit, or maybe it was the review's promise of flashbacks to the 40s (I cannot resist a good costume drama) but this film looks really fascinating and I thought I would share it with any of you who may not have weekend plans yet. Of course, the Museum has programs of its own in conjunction with Woman of Letters, including a special discussion entitled Jews in Vichy France with world-renown scholars Michael Marrus and Robert O. Paxton. I myself will be very interested to see this film and follow-up with this discussion. We're also planning a French film festival in January (more on that to come).