FILM: Sarah’s Key (12A)
Tatiana de Rosnay’s novel Elle S’appelait Sarah provides the inspiration for this moving drama centred on the real-life round-up of Parisian Jews at the Velodrome d’Hiver in July 1942, many of whom were transported to Auschwitz for extermination.
In the present day, magazine journalist Julia (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her architect husband Bertrand (Frederic Pierrot) inherit an apartment in the quarter where the Jews were herded almost 70 years earlier. Julia becomes fascinated by the history of the building and she learns that the apartment once belonged to the Starzynski family, which included 10-year-old Sarah (Melusine Mayance) and her little brother Michel. Through letters and public records, Julia discovers the heartbreaking fate of the children and their parents, and she ventures to New York to meet a man, William Rainsferd (Aidan Quinn), whose murky past is unknowingly entwined with the Starzynskis.
Released: August 5 (UK & Ireland, selected cinemas), 110 mins