♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Narrator: The Cannes Film Festival, a celebration that takes place in May each year is such a seasonal occurrence that we have forgotten its history.

In September of 1939, on the day before the general mobilization, two men Jean Zay and Philippe Erlanger, who shared a dream of a film festival that would act as the last bastion against the imminent barbarity, decided to join forces.

The story begins in a time of darkness.

♪♪ This international celebration that was crafted as an act of resistance refuses all censorship and propaganda, reminding us even today, that the freedom to take a chance, to imagine, to create, to criticize, is the most fragile of victories.

♪♪ And when death begets death, it gives rise to a vampire.

In 1938, Philippe Erlanger was 35 years old and was appointed head of the International Artistic Exchange Department.

One of his duties was to attend the Venice Film Festival.

♪♪ In Venice, the party was in full swing.

Philippe Erlanger was delighted to introduce the young Corinne Luchaire to Count Ciano, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Mussolini's son-in-law.

All the French cinema magazines, from Ciné Miroir to Cinémonde, were filled with rumors of his extravagant exploits and numerous love affairs.

♪♪ Count Ciano was very taken with her and would have liked t have given her his room number, but they were interrupted by Leni Riefenstahl, who invited Corinne t a ball in Count Volpi's palace.

One of the most popular dances that evening was "The Lambeth Walk."

All the rage since the musical "Me and My Girl," and described by Goebbels as Jewish nonsense that looked like a bunch of jumping animals.

♪♪ ♪♪ At the Volpe palace, Erlanger and Ciano prostrated themselves before Riefenstahl, known among her detractors as "The Pompadour of the Third Reich."

Erlanger congratulated her on "Olympia," a film he considered to be a masterpiece.

He told her that it was rare to see a film glory in the beauty and power of athletes so beautifully.

Leni Riefenstahl burst out laughing.

"You're only saying that because there are lots of naked men in my documentary."

Erlanger was somewhat of a dreamer.

He traveled to the Venic Film Festival with René Jeanne, a member of the international jury, who reassured him that Marcel Carné's film "Port of Shadows" was really in with a chance.

[ Man speaking in French ] Erlanger insisted that Leni Riefenstahl's presence in Venice for the duration of the festival was not just for show.

Hitler's protégé had worke with a team of 300 technicians, 40 of whom were cameramen.

There was no way a film financed entirely by the Nazi regime could go home empty-handed.

Joseph Goebbels must surely have been keeping an eye on things.

The Minister of Propaganda was a compulsive writer and kept a diary from 1923 up until his death in 1945.

On the 31st of August 1938, he wrote, "In Venice, The Italians want to give the Mussolini Cup to a film by Vittorio Mussolini and to create a New Nations award for our film on the Olympic Games.

I agree on condition that it is awarded as first prize.

Otherwise, there will be mayhem."

Mayhem was avoided.

The Italians conceded.

♪♪ ♪♪ On the 1st of September, the Mussolini Cup was awarded to two films.

"Luciano Serra Pilota," co-directed by Goffredo Alessandrini and Vittorio Mussolini, Il Duce's second son, and "Olympia," directed by Leni Riefenstahl.

Hitler and Mussolini were triumphant.

The relationship between Rome and Berlin was reinforced by the win.

[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪ Philippe Erlanger was stunned.

This was against the rules.

A documentary was not eligible for the feature film category.

He left the room in disgus with the American, Harold Smith and the Englishman, Neville Kearney.

René Jeanne insisted that he did his best to control the damage.

France won a general prize for all the films it produced.

"Yes," said Erlanger, "A consolation prize just like last year for 'La Grande Illusion.'

I told you that Riefenstahl was a ticking time bomb."

Friday, 2nd of September, 1938 Goebbels wrote in his journal.

"Dinner this evening at the Fuehrer's.

Our success in Venice greatly pleases him.

The impact our cinema has made is impressive."

♪♪ ♪♪ On the train back to Paris, Philippe Erlanger refused to give up.

Later, he would write about his insomnia that night.

"I wasn't able to dream.

But instead, at the break of dawn, an idea came to me.

Since the Venice Film Festiva has lost its vital objectivity, it is time to create an exemplary festival in France.

The festival of the free world."

♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪ ♪ Way up high ♪ ♪ There's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby ♪ ♪ Somewhere over the rainbow ♪ ♪ Skies are blue... ♪ Narrator: The night train pulled in to the Gare de Lyon in Paris.

Philippe Erlanger hadn't slept a wink, and Corinne Luchaire hadn't slept much in Venice, either.

Philippe Erlanger began working to make his dream a reality.

He teamed up with Jean Zay, the then minister for education, and Georges Huisman the director of the Beaux-Arts.

Plans for an international festival of the Free World begin to take shape.

A lawyer by trade and a member of Parliament for the Loire department, Jean Zay was, at the tender age of 27, the youngest minister in the Third Republic.

In 1936, Léon Blum had asked him to join the government, where he served as Minister for education and the Fine Arts until 1939.

He was a child during the First World War, where his father fought in the artillery.

School notebooks are filled with his fear of war.

"A generation of old men has wreaked havoc on this country for the entire war.

We were subject to the whims of the old instead of governing the nation.

They used their power to indulge their worst obsessions.

And the damage has been considerable."

♪♪ ♪♪ Late at night on the 29th of September, 1938, Daladier, Chamberlain, Mussolini, and Hitler signed the Munich Agreement.

♪♪ ♪♪ Joseph Goebbels wrote in his journal, "Dripping with irony, that the word 'peace' was on everyone's lips."

He added, "Now we need weapons, weapons, weapons."

This sham agreement divided the French government in the name of peace at all costs.

Some, like Georges Bonnet, Minister of Foreign Affairs, did not want to offend our dear Latin friends or the oversensitive Adolf Hitler.

The idea of a film festival that would serve as an anti- Mostra now became political.

Jean Zay, Minister for Cinema, refused to budge.

The issue was democracy versus totalitarianism.

On the 6th of December, 1938.

Joachim von Ribbentrop came to Paris to sign a declaration of Franco-German friendship with his French counterpart, Georges Bonnet.

The Munich Agreement was indeed a peace agreement.

♪♪ However, three months after this demonstration of Franco-German friendship, Hitler wiped Czechoslovakia off the map.

♪♪ A few days later, Neville Chamberlain and Edouard Daladier finally issued an official protest, but Ribbentrop refused to see them.

♪♪ This put an end to the illusion of peace.

Jean Zay and Philippe Erlanger eventually got the green light from the French government.

In May of 1939, a decision was made officially to retaliate against the Axis powers and create a film festival that was to unite the countries of the Free World.

Jean Zay won the Battle of Munich, but he then needed to find allies.

♪♪ ♪♪ He embarked on the ocean liner Ile-de-France with his wife, Madeleine.

They arrived in New York on the 5th of June.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ On the 16th of June, 1939, President Roosevelt welcomed Jean Zay to the White House.

They discussed the masquerade of the Munich Agreement and the need to stand firm when it came to Hitler.

Hollow words, indeed, given the American isolationist stance.

For most Americans, Europe was the least of their worries.

Nevertheless, everyone remained courteous.

Jean Zay had come to the United States to shore up the Franco-American alliance, and the perspective of an upcoming international film festival was the perfect opportunity for a show of anti-fascist Franco-American solidarity.

For the benefit of the Free World.

The dates for the festival were set.

The Venice Film Festival was scheduled to start on September the 1st, so the grand inaugural dinner at the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, presided by Jean Zay, was planned for the very same night as a retort to the Italians.

♪♪ It was utter madness to plan an event of this size with only six weeks to go.

But madness can give rise to the most exquisite of dreams.

♪♪ On the 6th of August, Philippe Erlanger, the festival's first ever general delegate, went to the Grand Hotel to supervise the set-up with Georges Huisman, director of the Beaux-Arts, a trusted accomplice, The task was immense.

♪♪ On that very same day, the 6th of August, who should step off the train in Cannes train station but the festival's honorary president, the great Louis Lumière, who 40 years earlier had made cinema history when he filmed a train coming into the station of La Ciotat.

♪♪ ♪♪ The organizers then needed to examine the logistics.

Everything was double-checked.

♪♪ Obviously, a festival of this size costs money.

Partnerships were key.

First of all, the SNCF, the French railway company, donated 60 free first-class passes and 40 half-price tax-free tickets.

Then the town's luxury hotels provided suites and rooms to stars and members of the organizing committee free of charge.

Air France was happy to encourage this French propaganda operation by giving participants exceptional rates and advertising the festival on their summer routes.

♪♪ ♪♪ Impressive advertising.

♪♪ The painter, Jean-Gabriel Domergue, who adopted Cannes as his new home, created the official poster for the first festival.

In the words of the artist, "This poster will go around the world as an irresistible invitation to travel."

It was decided that the Lumia Cup, rivaled to the Mussolini Cup and predecessor of the Palme d'Or, would be the award for best film.

♪♪ The Cannes Municipal Casino was temporarily chosen as the location for the screenings.

[ Man speaking in French ] A thousand-seat cinema was set up in the grand entrance hall of the casino in a huge hurry while waiting for the 2,000-seat palace to be built.

♪♪ In the newspaper Marianne, Jean Zay declared the Cannes Film Festival must not be a vehicle for propaganda because this word horrifies us.

It was made clear from the beginning this event mus not be made into a war machine.

And yet... all film-producing countries were invited, including, of course, Germany and Italy, who declined the invitation.

♪♪ It was now time to select the films.

Jean Zay attended some of the screenings for the commission that selected the four feature films that were to make the final list dated August the 12th -- "L'enfer des anges" by Christian-Jaque, "The Law of the North" by Jacques Feyder, "The Phantom Wagon" by Julien Duvivier, "Forbidden Love" by Jacques de Baroncelli.

Jean Zay added a feature length documentary, "France is an Empire" to the French selection, clearly intending to demonstrate French imperial power and to irritate the Italians.

♪♪ [ Man speaking in French ] ♪♪ Our American allies featured strongly with "The Wizard of Oz" by Victor Fleming, "Only Angels Have Wings" by Howard Hawks, and "Pacific Express" by Cecil B. DeMille.

Even a former country, Czechoslovakia, was represented by "Skeleton on Horseback" by Hugo Haas, a pacifist Anti-Hitler film shot in August 1938.

It told the story of a dictator who invades a neighboring country and can only be saved from an incurable disease if he declares world peace.

Much like the French, the Belgium sought to affirm their colonial power with "Dark Rapture" by Armand Denis and Leila Roosevelt, as did the English with "The Four Feathers" by Zoltan Korda.

It was clear that the events of the time that could so easily have prevented the festival from existing for the free world were at the heart of many of the films selected.

An ocean liner rented by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Hollywood's biggest stars on board dropped anchor in the Bay of Cannes.

♪♪ The summer was radiant, and a carefree atmosphere reigned over the French Riviera.

[ Man speaking in French ] ♪ ♪♪ [ Man speaking in French ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ One month earlier, on August 9, 1939, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his journal, "Yesterday, arrival in Venice.

Triumphant welcome at the train station, then made a magnificent entrance in a gondola by the Grand Canal to a magically beautiful city.

Unprecedented enthusiasm.

This beautiful city of Venice put on its most beautiful finery.

And when we embarked on St.

Mark's Square in speedboats, warship cannons started to thunder.

[ Cannons roaring ] [ Crowd cheering ] Ah, the magical beauty of cannons thundering over the lagoon."

The French had decided to go all out.

Julien Duvivier, who had won the previous year, was back with "La fin du jour."

Also in competition at Cannes, the French selection included "Le jour se lève" by Marcel Carné and "La bete humaine," Jean Renoir's masterpiece.

Goffredo Alessandrini, who had already won the Mussolini Cup the previous year for "Luciano Serra, Pilot" was also back with "L'Apitre du désert."

Loyalty to Il Duce paid off.

He was awarded with the Mussolini Cup, an incredible repeat performance.

The French left empty handed, safe in the knowledge that they were to have their revenge in Cannes.

Eight days before the opening of the festival, a gala benefit dinner for hospitalized children was set to take place.

Known as ball of the Petit Le Blanc or small white beds, the event was an institution.

A thousand guests were expected at the Palm Beach.

A thousand settings at 1,000 francs each.

This soirée must be the gala of all galas.

The night of diamonds, the night of elegance.

The event was filled with American stars as well as Serge Lifar and the Opéra de Paris.

Major fashion designers like Lanvin, Patou, Schiaparelli, the jewelers Van Cleef & Arpels, and countless celebrities.

Just when the fireworks, which were expected to be spectacular, were about to be set off, a terrible storm broke out.

Some years later, Philippe Erlanger described the scene.

"The sky was pure beauty, and then all of a sudden it was full of clouds and a storm, or rather a hurricane, descended on the diners.

The thunder sounded like heavy artillery.

Panic stations.

The Titanic in Cannes."

Auntie Em!

Auntie Em!

[ Wind gusting ] ♪♪ The next day, news broke of the new German-Soviet pact.

After the previous day's storm, a wind of horror now swept over everyone in Cannes.

♪♪ Erlanger and Zay did not lose hope.

They picked up the pieces, trying to put them back together.

The festival, their festival would go on at all costs, but the tourists leave, the grand hotels empty out and Nice train station fills up.

On the city walls among the festival posters, call ups for the first troops of reserve soldiers start to appear.

In a press release dated August 29th, Jean Zay declared the opening of the International Film Festival that was supposed to take place in Cannes on the 1st of September will be postponed until the 10th of September, circumstances permitting.

The circumstances, as we know, did not permit.

♪♪ Early in the morning on September 1, 1939. five German armies invaded Poland.

At 6:00 in the morning, the bombing of Warsaw began.

[ People shouting ] The same day, the French government decreed a general mobilization.

♪♪ ♪♪ The Cannes Film Festival was the first victim, the first star to fall from the sky.

♪♪ ♪♪ On September the 2nd, 1939, Jean Zay tendered his resignation as Minister for Education and Fine Arts to Edouard Daladier "At the age of 35, I wish to share the fate of the young people of France, whom I have served to the bes of my ability in the government for the past 40 months."

And so Second Lieutenant Zay was assigned to the Fourth Army in France's train regiment.

He was now just an ordinary soldier and wrote to his wife Madeleine, every day.

"My dear sweetheart, what a strange war.

My lack of knowledge of diplomatic events adds to the worry and impatience."

On December the 25th, a freezing cold night, Jean Zay wrote to Madeleine, "Christmas Day, a sad Christmas that keeps me away from my two loves and robs me from the joy of seeing Catou with her toys in front of the tree all lit up.

This afternoon I was in a military cinema from 4:00 p.m.

to 6:00 p.m.

'Chaste Susanne.'

What an idiotic film.

And in the evening I saw a second film reserved for the officers.

As I ask, a semi idiotic film that jumped every 10 minutes in a bitterly cold room.

Snow everywhere, a never ending winter."

A few months later, o the eve of the German invasion, he wrote one last nostalgic letter to his wife.

"Do you remember one year ago?

We were in New York.

We were at the Astoria, looking out the windo at the illuminated skyscrapers.

And tonight I'm crossing the deserted villages of Champagne."

Eventually, when the debacle of the world's largest army became tragically obvious, a very simple question arose.

Should we keep fighting?

For Jean Zay, without the slightest hesitation, the battle had to continue in North Africa.

Everything has already been said and written about the Massilia tragedy, a Noah's Ark that became the raft of the Medusa, a Greek tragedy, according to Madeleine Zay, who was then pregnant with Helene.

She embarked on the ocean liner with her daughter Catherine, full of confidence and hope, reunited with her husband, Jean.

The objective was to fight the Germans in North Africa.

Jean Zay, Georges Huisman, Pierre Mendes France.

Edouard Daladier, and about 20 other parliamentarians left France thoroughly convinced that the fight must continue.

The passengers would learn of the new armistice while on board the Massilia.

They were appalled to learn that Marshal Pétain was to obtain full power.

They were all trapped.

♪♪ Meanwhile, in Compiegne, Adolf Hitler was jumping for joy.

It's true.

It was as if he was dancing the Lambeth Walk.

As soon as they arrived in Casablanca, the Massilia parliamentarians immediately understood that they were now outcasts.

They naively thought they would be greeted like heroes, but they disembark to a shower of insults.

Admiral Darlan, havin first supported the initiative, would later refer to the parliamentarians' departure as a shameful escape.

And he was not alone.

Pierre Laval also wante to crack down on the Defeatists and do some cleaning up.

Philippe Erlanger had been mobilized since the beginning of hostilities as a simple second class in the auxiliary forces, and he remained the director of the French Association of Artistic Action.

If it had been only up to him, he might have boarded the Massilia.

But fate decided otherwise.

After having roamed the roads bombed out by German and Italian aviation with his dear colleagues, he came back to the capital, since declared an open city.

His friends, government employees at the head of the Beaux-Arts, looked at him strangely.

Jean Zay had been arrested in Rabat for high treason.

Rumors spread tha Jews had treason in their blood and that they formed a network.

Is it not with this Zay and Huisman that Erlanger wanted to create a film festival?

Jean Zay was arrested in Rabat on August the 15th, 1940, charged with abandonment of post and desertion in the presence of the enemy.

He was not allowed to notify Madeleine, who was about to give birth, nor could he say goodbye to his daughter, Catherine.

On August the 20th.

he was transferred to Clermont-Ferrand and detained in a military prison.

The ghosts of the Dreyfus affair got their revenge.

The anti-Semitic press went wild.

Let's not forget that it was Celine who coined the phrase je vous Zay, equating Zay's very name with the French sentence meaning I hate you.

A prison term followed.

Jean Zay was sentenced to deportation and military degradation, the very same sentence as Captain Dreyfus.

His own take on the subject was they were not trying to punish the officer as such.

They were trying to punish the politician, the leftist deputy, the Jew.

"They convicted me, but I know that I've done nothing wrong."

After Clermont-Ferrand, he was incarcerated in Fort Saint-Nicolas in Marseille.

On the 6th of December, 1940, he wrote, "The director intimates that he's doing me a favor by not having my head shaved or not giving me a full body check.

But they've taken away my books, my pen, my tobacco, my razor, my watch.

They've taken everything, even my wedding ring."

On the 7th of January, 1941, Jean Zay was transferred from Marseille to a prison in Riom.

A decision by the Council of Ministers changed his status to political prisoner, and he was allowed to receive books and newspapers.

A little courtyard surrounded by a 6-meter wall meant he could see the sky.

"And that means so much," he wrote.

"On my wall I've hun the portrait of Auguste Blanqui by Eugene Carriere.

The lithograph is coming off the dark background, creating a striking relief, a pathetic mask with sunken eyes and protruding cheekbones and an eagle's beak of a nose.

His visionary gaze is lost in the unknown."

But Jean Zay dreamt of a spirit that travels through time and space outside this captive body, a free spirit that defied chains and locks.

On August 16th, he wrote, "One year ago today, I lost my freedom.

It feels so much like losing a limb or one of my senses that I should say that one yea ago, my freedom was amputated."

On December the 7th, he was allowed to hold his daughter Catherine on his knee during a visit.

To protect her children, Madeleine did not tell them they were in a prison.

She made them believe that he lived in a slightly unusual type of room.

[ Person speaking a global language ] On October the 3rd, 1940, Pétain's government passed a law regulating the status of Jews and excluding them from public office.

Philippe Erlanger decided it was about time to move.

He had been given parole, but for how long?

As a Jew, he was no longer allowed to be a government employee.

He got on a train with a makeshift Ausweis.

The train came to a stop in a station at the border at Melun.

German soldiers swarmed the wagons.

With his heart in his throat, Erlanger explained that he was going to the non-occupied zone for cinematographic reasons.

He was naturally drawn to Cannes.

He knew many people there, and Henry Gendre, director of the Grand Hotel, was to welcome him with open arms.

"The Grand Hotel," Erlanger wrote, "is one of the prettiest in France, a sort of castle that's separated from the croisette and the sea by a magnificent garden.

I am exiled in heaven with the sword of Damocles over my head."

The population on the Cote d'Azur at the time was highly cosmopolitan, an assortment of French people, many foreigners and political refugees, Maurice Chevalier, Marcel Achard, Tristan Bernard, Reynaldo Hahn, the Aga Khan, exiled Russian princes, Solomon Guggenheim, the Rothschilds, the Levitins, Henri Salvador, and so on.

Later, Jean-Paul Sartre wrote about that time that, "the occupation was intolerable and we managed very well."

Nevertheless, some, such as Dalio, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Michele Morgan, and Jean Gabin didn't manage so well and instead chose exile in the United States.

Gabin joined the French naval forces in 1943.

Josephine Baker joined the Free French Forces and was decorated after the liberation.

Robert Lynen, who superbly played the re head in Julien Duvivier's film, joined in the resistance and ended up being arrested, tortured, and executed by the Germans in 1944.

Joseph Goebbels had long hoped to invite French artists and intellectuals to visit the Greater German Reich.

People were free to accept or refuse the invitation.

And the famous trip to Berlin was written about extensively, triggering the sometimes delayed patriotism of the purifiers after the liberation.

Among those who decided to live dangerously, some were simply foolish, some were conformists, an some were actual collaborators.

We won't name any names.

On April the 18th, 1942, Pétain appointed Pierre Laval head of the government, marking the start of the phase of active collaboration.

Goebbels, increasingly itchy due to his stress induced eczema, wrote, "We could not find a better man than Laval for our policies."

In November 1942, the free zone was renamed South Zone and was invaded by the Germans.

In his cell, Jean Zay wrote, "I woke in the nigh to a muffled constant rumbling.

It was the German trucks and tanks crossing the demarcation line on their way to the Mediterranean coast."

The French Riviera had been spared up until then, but once the Germans crossed the demarcation line, Philippe Erlanger was subject to the new status for Jews who were now excluded from all professions so as to eliminate their influence on national economic activity.

Contemptible decrees followed, each one signed by Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France.

Ever since the preparations for the Cannes Film Festival, Erlanger had become a local celebrity, someone people recognized in the street.

He had a hard time keeping a low profile, so he turned in his papers and census form to the French authorities.

"Among the unpleasant government workers to whom I present my papers, I recognized the faces of some who were assigned to me three years ago to organize the festival's security service."

In Nice, a first round-up took place in August, and most refugees now had to hide to avoid the Gestapo's black cars and trust no one.

Neighbors, militia concierges, shop owners, prostitutes, plainclothes policemen, police stations were inundated with anonymous letters.

It was now mandatory to wear the yellow star.

Erlanger wrote, "They lick their lips like ogres in fairy tales, thinking of all the Jews they'll devour around Nice."

The massacre of the innocent could begin.

[ Whistle blows, indistinct shouts ] The SS began by making arrests in the luxury hotels.

Then the whole city succumbed.

[ Indistinct conversations ] Erlanger decided to leave Nice for Cannes.

While waiting, he found a boarding house in which to hide, La pension des Lauriers rose.

Horrible yellow wallpaper with big red flowers covered the walls.

He waited.

An actor friend came to tell him that the 5:00 train was stopped by the SS, and that they made everyone get off.

The passengers were beaten an loaded into trucks like cattle.

That day, hundreds of people left, not for Cannes, but for camps in the East.

Distraught, Philippe Erlanger hid in his bedroom.

♪♪ In his prison cell, Jean Zay wrote, "The sun is setting.

I can hear children laughing and shouting in the street.

I yield to the night at the last moment when my book is cloaked in shadow and I must guess the words."

In Nice, the room where Erlanger is still hiding has become a cell.

"I nearly want them to come, to get it over with," he wrote.

A friend urged him to snap out of his listless resignation.

He advised Erlanger to take the next bus for Cannes.

"If I want to end things on a high note, it might as well be in the city where the festival was supposed to happen," Erlanger says.

He too his suitcase and left his room.

But the Gestapo was combing every inch of Cannes, and the atmosphere had become unbearable.

He found refuge in Gascogne and went into hiding once agai with his ear glued to the radio for news of possible Allied landings.

As if in expectation of an Allied victory, the militia, led by Joseph Darnand, spread terror everywhere, stepping up arrests and executions.

Jean Zay wrote his fina words on the 19th of June 1944.

It was to be his last letter to Madeleine.

"This is the last step.

It will be brief, and at the end, we'll all be reunited and peaceful and happy with our girls.

I'm leavin with good spirits and strength.

I have never been surer of my destiny and my path."

He entrusted this rather strange letter to the director of the Riom priso before following the militiamen who had come to take him away.

In a note from Darnand' militia dated the 16th of June, the director o the penitentiary administration was ordered to transfer the prisoner named Jean Zay to the center at Melun.

The date set was the 20th of June and the entire operation was top secret.

Jean Zay asked to see his family before leaving.

His request was denied by the authorities.

The three men who came to get him claimed to be members of the resistance disguised as militia.

They told him he was safe.

He immediately asked them to inform his wife.

They reassured him that they would write to her.

Two hours later, he was killed in a hail of machine gun fire.

[ Machine gun fire ] His body was thrown into ravine called the Devil's Well.

It was found four years later.

Philippe Erlanger came out of his nightmare alive.

When Marcel Abraham, Jean Zay's chief of staff, was freed, he informed Erlanger that he was still director of artistic action and had always been.

It was as if these dark years had just been a parenthesis for a very bad dream.

[ Crowd applauding ] When they imagined an international festival of the free world, Erlanger and Zay must surely have felt that film, the seventh art form, could elude politics and all forms of propaganda.

The Vichy regime, in the name of the national revolution, required filmmakers to highlight the idea of a new France on their screens, a purified, regenerated and preferably Catholic France.

The miracle of these dark times was the number of filmmakers and films that managed to slip through the cracks, as if being subjugated by Vichy and the cultural orders of the Nazi regime had led to a certain creative vitality so specific to the spirit of resistance.

♪♪ Of course, some very bad, soporific, and sentimental films were made during the period, but so were some highly important works by the likes of Marcel Carné, Henri-Georges Clouzot, Henri Decoin, Jean Cocteau, Maurice Tourneur, and André Cayatte, to name just a few.

All of these film directors, actors, technicians fought to survive.

Many of them had signed contracts with the continental films and were charged with carrying out purges that followed the liberation of France.

But what lies behind a decision when sides must be taken?

One signal failure, and the train goes down the wrong track.

What stationmaster is beyond reproach?

♪♪ Healing the wounds lef by the war became the priority.

Once again, Philippe Erlanger floated the idea of a festival in a listless, worn out country.

Time was of the essence, as other cities in other countries might have beat Cannes to it by creating their own event.

♪♪ Funds were lacking, so the city launched a public petition, and workers of every trade rallied to take part.

They discovered that the enthusiasm and fervor of 1939 was not quite dead, and this time they don't hear the sound of jackboots along the border.

♪♪ The dates were finally set, and the historic edition took place on the 15th of October, 1946.

Erlanger said that, "It was the first party the world threw for itself in a sort of drunken state under a sun that shone until mid-October."

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Person narrating archival footage in French ] ♪♪ [ Person narrating archival footage in French ] Narrator: Jean Cocteau, who was president of the event three times, declared that, "The Cannes festival should be a no man's land where politicians have no place."

In other words, a free zone.

Jean Zay and Philippe Erlanger's original intention was intact, but politics will always find a way into the festival, proving the extent to which cinema truly reflects our society.

On March 23, 1956, Alain Rene's short film "Night and Fog" was unanimously added to the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival.

Anatole Dumont, Rene's producer, was informed that the German Embassy had requested to see the film.

And who let the minister know that the presentation of "Night and Fog" might shock the Germans?

None other than the director of Artistic Action of the Quai d'Orsay, Philippe Erlanger.

Article seven of the 1939 resolution stipulated that the jury has the right to refuse a film it judges hurtful to the state national pride.

And since it was now important to reinforce the relationship between the two countries, a documentary about the horrors of Nazi concentration camps would make the new Germany look bad.

Alain Rene's short film was pulled from the competition.

What would Jean Zay have said?

We won't speak for him, but will instead read an extract from Jean Cassou's preface to Zay's book "Memory and Solitude."

"It's the others who don't understand.

The executioners, the liars, the assassins, those who detain prisoners and kill them.

Those who think they govern the world while the world under their rule gains awareness, experience, hope, and fights back.

The executioners can never imagine the light and the courage that our dead pass on to us."

So let the celebration begin again.

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