Quand tu écouteras cette chanson

The Diary of Anne Frank. A book that people worldwide come across as children and barely remember as adults. Quand tu écouteras cette chanson is based on Lola Lafon’s text of the same name, which describes the night she spent at the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, where the Frank family and other persecuted Jewish families lived in hiding from 1942 to 1944 before being betrayed, deported and murdered. Lafon describes the imaginary encounter with Anne Frank as a superimposition of two biographies: that of the nascent writer violently cut short and her own one in 1980s Paris, with a keen activist eye for everything, apart from the ongoing antisemitism. Drawing on breathtaking, shifting montage that incorporates archive material, smart mental leaps and perspective changes, Mona Bauer (Achache) puts Lola Lafon in the picture as she becomes aware of her own Jewish identity – as a protagonist reading from her book out loud, as matter-of-fact and tender as the text itself. The process of creating literary images is shifted into the cinematic realm, as the picture of this forever illustrated and celebrated symbolic figure of the Shoah is deconstructed and liberated from merchandising status. (Christiane Büchner, Barbara Wurm)

A self-taught filmmaker, Mona Bauer (Achache) began her career as an assistant director and script supervisor, working in both fiction and documentary. Her debut feature, Le hérisson (The Hedgehog), was an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Muriel Barbery. The film was commissioned before the book’s runaway success and became a hit in French cinemas. She has directed more than twenty films for TV, dramas, documentaries and series episodes, and her docudrama Little Girl Blue was nominated for three Césars after premiering in the Official Selection of the Cannes Film Festival.

Director Mona Bauer (Achache). Screenplay Lola Lafon, Mona Bauer (Achache). Cinematography Alexis Kavyrchine. Editing Muriel Breton. Music Léon Rousseau. Sound Design Malo Thouément. Producer Anne Schuchman-Kune. Production company Schuch Productions (Paris, France).

World sales Incognita Distribution

Films: 2009: Le hérisson / The Hedgehog. 2010: Dans la tourmente. 2014: Les gazelles. 2021: Les femmes et l’assassin / The Women and the Murderer (documentary, co-directed by Patricia Tourancheau), Coeurs vaillants / Valiant Hearts. 2023: Little Girl Blue (documentary). 2025: Quand tu écouteras cette chanson / When You Listen to This Song.