The Innocents is from Poland and French director Anne Fontaine. In 1945 Poland, a young French Red Cross doctor (Lou de Laâge) who is sent to assist the French survivors of the German camps discovers several nuns in advanced states of pregnancy during a visit to a nearby convent.
Women and Hollywood interviewed director Anne Fontaine after the film premiered at Sundance. She said, “A French doctor — who is an atheist — finds herself helping several nuns who are pregnant as the result of an attack on their convent during WWII and their faith understandably vacillating. The film explores how tragic circumstances can bring together people motivated by seemingly opposite beliefs.”
In Jordan Raup’s review after Sundance, he said, “Agnus Dei [the original title] is a moving drama about the struggle to keep one’s faith in the most difficult of situations. Also working as an allegory for humanity’s enduring difficulty to stay true to one’s ideals when a quandary is thrown in the mix, Agnus Dei is a compelling deconstruction of how to cope and rebuild.”
Also featured in the film are Agata Buzek and Agata Kulesza. The Innocents is based on actual events.
The Innocents will be in theaters on July 1. You may have to hunt for it in the venues that show foreign films, but it looks worth the effort.
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