Quand tu écouteras cette chanson

When You Listen to This Song

Forum Special 2026

“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.

Trailer/Film Excerpt

To view this content, you must enable third-party cookies. >

by Mona Bauer (Achache) (Director, Screenplay), Lola Lafon (Screenplay) France 2025 French 54' Colour & Black/White Documentary form

Crew

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

Produced by

Schuch Productions

Paris, France

World Sales

Incognita Distribution

Paris, France

Photos

Mona Bauer (Achache)

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.

Filmography

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); documentary

Bio- & filmography as of Berlinale 2026