Film Screening
CEASEFIRE (Cessez-le-feu)
Drama, 2017
Runtime: 1 hr 53 min
North American Premiere
Director: Emmanuel Courcol
Cast: Romain Duris, Céline Sallette, Grégory Gadebois, Julie-Marie Parmentier, Maryvonne Schiltz, Wabinlé Nabié
Synopsis:
This classically elegant period drama explores the aftermath of war through the struggles of a French family to resume normal life after the traumas of WWI. Romain Duris puts on a rakish front as Georges Laffont, a man who has lost his way after horrific trench warfare leaves him emotionally scarred. It’s the beginning of the roaring 20s, but the era’s carefree decadence doesn’t touch the Laffonts. They are still reeling from the loss of an eldest son, gone missing on the field of battle, and the travails of Georges’ third brother, Marcel, who has returned from the war unable to speak or hear. Rather than confronting his own shellshock, Georges retreats to the Upper Volta colony of West Africa. There he roams the countryside recruiting laborers for Ghanaian plantations and spinning tales of the Great War with the aid of Diofo, another war survivor. But Georges’ aimless existence gets a course correction in the form of Marcel’s kindly and attractive sign language teacher Hélène.