Monsieur Batignole

Monsier Batignole is a French box office hit film released in 2002. The film was directed by Grard Jugnot and featured Grard Jugnot, Jules Sitruk, JeanPaul Rouve, Gtz Burger, Michle Garcia and Alexia Portal in the lead role. The film depicts the story of French grocer Grard Jugnot helping a young Jewish boy reach Switzerland safely. The film showed that on one side there were people who wanted to own and enjoy whatever property belonging to the Jews that had been confiscated by the German Army, and on the other were people like Edmond Batignole, who kept his sense of humanity and wanted to help the homeless Jewish boy.

The film was a box office hit in France. The film also received huge critical acclaim. It was praised for the portrayal of collaboration of the French during the Second World War. Critics said the film resembled Life is Beautiful to a great extent in the portrayal of the conditions of Jews during the Second World War. The 2002 French Academy of Cinema Best Young Actor award was won by JeanPaul Rouve in this film. The film was shown at VCU French Film Festival, Cleveland International Film Festival, French Film Festival, Bergen International Film Festival where it once again received huge critical acclaim. The films director Grard Jugnot was praised for his directing and acting.

Source: Wikipedia