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Au revoir les enfants was inspired by the dramatic memories of my childhood. In the year 1944 I was eleven-years-old, a student at the Catholic boarding school near Fontainbleau. One of my friends, who arrived at the beginning of the year, raised a lot of questions in me. He was different, withdrawn. I began to get to know him and love him, until the that morning when our small world collapsed.
That morning of the year 1944 may have determined my destiny as a film director – a destiny that I have served faithfully and devotedly.
In fact, this was supposed to be the topic of my first film, but I hesitated and waited. The time passed, and the memory became sharper, more present. Last year, after a stay of eleven years in the United States, I felt that the time had come and wrote the script for Au revoir les enfants. My memories served as a springboard for my imagination. I reconstructed the historical events that were etched into my memory, searching for the painful truth that is beyond time.
Through the perspective of a young boy who resembles me I tried to find again this first friendship that had grown strong and was abruptly destroyed, and the discovery of the absurd adult world that held violence and prejudice.