Amour et transgression sous l'Occupation

During the Occupation, intimate relationships, whatever they may be, take on a particular dimension, where danger and the proximity of death amplify the need for passion, pleasure and transgression. These impulses appear as ultimate expressions of freedom and life in a context marked by constraint and uncertainty. Nearly two hundred thousand children are said to have been born from the union between French women and German soldiers, illustrating the complexity of human interactions in times of war. In occupied Paris, figures such as Jean Genet and Jean Cocteau bear witness to a world where relationships between people of the same sex are sometimes drawn in ambiguous frameworks. At the Liberation, women accused of having had relations with the occupier become a symbol of the deep tensions and contradictions of a society seeking to rebuild itself after the trials of war. Director: Isabelle Clarke