NINA'S HOUSE LA MAISON DE NINA (15)


Set in an orphanage housed within a chateau on the outskirts of Paris Richard Dembo’s film looks at how young Jews readjust to life after surviving the horrors of the Second World War.
The story starts in 1944, in the wake of the Liberation, and continues into the Sixties. “Houses of hope” were established to lend a semblance of continuity to the lives of youngsters orphaned by the conflict. The director, born in 1948, went to summer camp in one such establishment, where he observed some of the people who had lived there since the war – and met the real-life Nina who inspired his script.
Nina (Agnès Jaoui) looks after the youngsters whose parents are probably dead. Food and supplies are scarce, but she cajoles her charges to make do with what they’ve got or what she can cadge from GIs.
Jaoui gives an excellent account as Nina, dedicated to helping her young charges, while singer-actor Michel Jonasz delivers a fine cameo as the painter Marc Chagall.
Dembo who made the chess drama Dangerous Moves and won the 1984 foreign- language Oscar, died in 2004 during post-production, strikes a tone perfectly suited to the melancholy yet never depressing material.

Cast: Agnes Jaoui, Sarah Adler, Katia Lewkowicz, Arie Elmaleh, Charles Berling, Adele Csech, Jeremy Sitbon, Vincent Rottiers, Tomas Le Marquis, Alexis Pivot,
Max Levy, Lola Naymark, Claire Bouanich, Arnaud Marciszewer, and Gaspard Ulliel.

Director: Richard Dembo.

2005. 109mins
Int. Sales: TF1 International

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