Hotel du Parc (2n.civil war)

In July 1940, Maréchal Pétain set up the government of the “French State” in the Hotel du Parc at Vichy. Until the country’s liberation in August 44, it was from here that he led his “National Revolution” and policy of collaboration with Nazi Germany. This film in two parts presents a series of interviews with officials of the Vichy regime interpreted by actors, but whose accounts are drawn from written material, trial transcripts or proven testimony. It is punctuated by documents which are, for the most part, false archives directed to look the work of amateurs.The second part, the Civil War, tries to explain from within the policies of Vichy from 42 to 44 (forced labour in Germany, the STO, the Jewish question, repression of the resistance and control by the Militia of state institutions).Fake interviews, fake archives more realistic than the real, this is an original attempt to combine imagination and history in a work which offers the country an image of its repressed past. (Pierre Beuchot’s film “Le Temps Détruit” on the “phony war” was presented at the Marseille INPUT in 1985)