Goodbye, Children

Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, GOODBYE CHILDREN is a powerful and emotionally wrenching work. It is based on what Louis Malle (ATLANTIC CITY, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE) considers to be the most traumatic event of his life: the Gestapo capture of three Jewish schoolmates given sanctuary in his Carmelite boarding school during the Occupation in France. Twelve-year-old Julien (Malle's alter ego) is a top student who is at first put off by Jean, a new boy who is his academic rival. Soon their common interests lead to a close friendship, and Julien discovers his friend's secret Jewish identity. Malle has reinvented the past in the pursuit of a haunting and timeless truth. His masterpiece is a loving tribute to the memory of those closest to him who were victims of World War II.