‘Nobody would forgive me if I told the truth’: new film about pacifist turned Nazi collaborator divides France

In Les Rayons et les Ombres, Jean Dujardin plays a real-life press baron partying during the horrors of the second world war. Director Xavier Giannoli discusses bringing this still sensitive topic to light Xavier Giannoli’s new film Les Rayons et les Ombres (Rays and Shadows) is told from the postwar perspective of Corinne Luchaire, a French actor who was once hailed as “the new Garbo” but grew too close to the Nazis during the German occupation years. As Luchaire records her thoughts on a borrowed tape recorder, she struggles to reconcile her unfaltering devotion to her father, the once-powerful press baron Jean, with his 1946 execution for treason. Her wilful blindness collapses as the Jewish director who helped launch her career visits her cramped flat. When Corinne, played by newcomer Nastya Golubeva Carax, enquires after his sister, he reveals that she died in a concentration camp. “I didn’t know,” murmurs Corinne, only to be met with the devastating reply: “Did you even try to ...

Studio One Forever review – affectionate look back at LA’s legendary gay club

Frequented by those looking for a refuge from homophobia, this documentary charts the history of the venue and the effort to save its cultural legacy

‘It used to be paradise. Now it’s a straight club.” The dismay is obvious when a bunch of former regulars at Studio One, the legendary West Hollywood gay club, take a tour of the venue in 2019. From 1974 until 1993, 9pm to 2am, seven nights a week, men packed the dancefloor of Studio One. “It was the happiest place on Earth,” remembers one. Looking at the photographs you can almost smell the sweat. One ex employee says that so many guys were taking poppers you could get a head-rush high simply by breathing in on the dance floor.

The story of Studio One is told in this affectionate, nostalgic documentary. Film-maker Marc Saltarelli interviews men who were there and follows a campaign in 2019 to save the Studio One building – a former factory – from demolition. When it opened in 1974, homophobia was rife outside. Studio One was a place where you could go to feel safe and loved. Though really, that only applied to white men; the racist door policy at Studio One was so well known the LA Times ran a front-page story about it.

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