STOLEN BABIES / Bébés volés

 

International Premiere • TV Movie • Drama • France, 2016

Blu-ray • Color • 90 min

Directed by: Alain Berliner

Written by: Julie Jézéquel

Produced by: Marie-Hélène Pages (Capa Drama Films)

Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire (Ines Barras), Hélène De Saint Père, (Helen Carbona), Philippe Lelièvre (Pierre Carbona)

International Sales: Newen

Original Broadcast: France 2, 2016

 

Sandrine Bonaire hits all the right notes as Ines Barras, a refugee of Francoist Spain. As a teenager, Ines gave birth in a convent. Believing the child was stillborn, Ines left Spain for France, where she has lived most of her adult life. Now, 30 years later, Ines discovers that the sisters of the convent lied to her. She returns to Spain, hoping to discover the whereabouts of her lost child. But the search leads her to a larger story: a policy of child abduction and trafficking under the auspices of the Church, and with the cooperation of the state. Under the Franco regime, children of “red” parents were abducted and placed in the homes of Francoist families to be “racially corrected”. But how could the practice continue long after Spain has returned to democracy? And how has it been kept secret for all these years?

 

For many Americans, writer/director Alain Berliner seemed to come out of nowhere to direct the prescient transgender drama Ma vie en rose (1997). The film won a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and led to a foray into Hollywood with his Demi-Moore starring thriller, Passion of Mind (2000). But before he sat in the director’s chair, the Belgian-born filmmaker scripted a handful of original TV movies. Since 2008, Berliner has been working almost exclusively in TV, directing movie adaptations of some of France’s great authors, including Simenon, The House By the Canal (2003) and Balzac, La peau de chagrin (2010). In addition to his long format work, Berliner also directed 6 episodes of the comedy series Clara Sheller in 2008. Writer Julie Jézéquel has enjoyed a successful writing career with credits on 15 TV movies and series.  She is also known as an actor, notably for Patrice Leconte's Tandem (1987), and Claude Goretta's L'Ombre (1991), and more recently for dozens of TV movies and series.