Safe Conduct

Safe Conduct is set in Paris in March 1942, during the German occupation of France. The German company Continental dominates the French film industry, and two men tied to cinema take very different paths through it. Jean-Devaivre, an assistant director and a member of the Resistance, works for Continental while secretly carrying on his underground political activity, using the job as cover. His friend Jean Aurenche, a screenwriter, refuses to work for the occupier at all, even though this leaves him without a livelihood. One navigates the studio system from the inside, the other resists by staying out of it, and both find the war years a test of survival. The film was directed by Bertrand Tavernier, who wrote the screenplay with Jean Cosmos. It followed D'Artagnan's Daughter in Tavernier's filmography and came before In the Electric Mist. Jacques Gamblin plays Jean-Devaivre and Denis Podalydès plays Jean Aurenche, with Charlotte Kady, Marie Desgranges, Ged Marlon and Philippe Morier-Genoud among the large cast. Produced by Christine Gozlan, Frédéric Bourboulon and Alain Sarde, the film runs 171 minutes and was made as a co-production between France, Germany and Spain. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.9 from around 1,700 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.5 from a much smaller number of votes.