In La Loi (The Law), Emmanuelle Devos gives a spellbinding performance as Simone Veil, the groundbreaking health minister and leading force behind the legalization of abortion in France in 1975. Born in France in the 1920s, Veil studied politics at Paris’s prestigious Sciences Po during World War II until she and her family were deported to concentration camps by the Nazis. Although she lost her parents and a brother, Veil managed to survive both Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. After the war, she rose in the national government, becoming Jacques Chirac’s minister of health in 1974. In the film, Chirac and her fellow ministers cravenly abandoned her to defend the controversial law on her own. As the attacks grew more personal and anti-Semitic, Veil never loses her mesmerizing cool. With its noir look and artful pacing, the film instills the backroom dealings with all of the edge-of-your-seat tension of a true-crime thriller.
Date: Sunday, February 21, 3PM
Location: Held Auditorium, 304 Barnard Hall
Filmmaker Bio:
Christian Faure is a French screenwriter and film director, known for Just a Question of Love (2000), Behind The Walls (2008) and A Love to Hide (2005).
