François Mouren-Provensal

This complex and puzzling French drama walks the fine wavering line between the fictional and the very real as it tells the tale of a strangely erotic event in the life of a little girl and the musings of a schizophrenic woman. Also involved is an enigmatic spouse who prepares a surprise for a burglar.

Documentary in two parts that blends dramatized reconstructions, personal reminisces and newsreel footage to tell the story of the flight of German refugees through occupied France to Marseilles in 1940. In 1977 Ingemo Engström and Gerhard Theuring embark on a journey through France. They trace the escape route of the German emigration in France 1940/41, documenting the places, talking to witnesses, relating the temporal layers. The film Escape Route to Marseilles that was the result of this journey, carries the subtitle “Images from a working journal (1977) on the novel Transit (1941) by Anna Seghers”.