“This story incarnated and explored by the 3 generations who go back step by step towards the secret of their memory takes us by the hand and sweeps us away”
Christian Le Peutrec
“Exceptional on a historical level, for the remarkable quality of its production, but also for the deep humanity that runs through it”
Jean-Philippe Périn
"Extremely touching, simple and sincere. The discreet presence of Albert's great-granddaughter adds to the sensitivity of the film"
Laurent Meyer
Lumière du Jour presents
Following
Albert
a film by Stéphan Balay
original music by Pascal Braule
only those we forget really dies
synopsys
I never knew Albert Balay, my paternal grandfather. Serge, my father, never knew him either. I never got the full story of Albert's disappearance but I heard bits and pieces of it, fragments of stories and anecdotes that ended up sedimenting in me.
Gendarme, Resistance fighter, tortured, deported, death in deportation... certainties and unknowns intertwined.
I always saw his photograph alongside Elisabeth, my grandmother, hanging on the wall in her home. Now that I'm starting to make this film, I'm discovering that there are a lot of letters, photos and personal or official documents that my grandmother had preciously preserved.
Transmitting a story is not just about showing photographs with incomplete captions. The transmission requires something more substantial and more accomplished: a family journey in Albert's footsteps.
With this film, I want to assemble the fragments of the story and reconstruct the puzzle to get as close as possible to the man who was my grandfather, this man who enlightened our lives.
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Keywords: gendarmes resistance fighters, resistance, Sengler network, deportation, concentration camp, Shoah, holocaust, Hitler, SS, gestapo, Dachau, Auschwitz, Mauthausen, Ebensee, gas chamber, provenchères-sur-Fave, gendarmerie, World War II, 39 45