Heartbeat Detector - French Film By Nicolas Klotz

Are modern workplaces like Nazi extermination camps? Some would say they are, but here's a film that tries to tell you they're worse.

Alliance Francaise Hyderabad, in association with the Hyderabad Film Club, is screening a French film 'Heartbeat Detector', on 9th November, at Sarathi Studios.

Heartbeat Detector (the North American release title for the 2007 French film La Question Humaine), was directed by Nicolas Klotz, and stars Mathieu Amalric, Michael Lonsdale, and Edith Scob.

The film centers on Kessler, a psychologist in the human resources department of the French branch of a German firm. The firm has recently dismissed half its workforce, based on criteria devised by Kessler. Rose, the vice-president of the company, requests Kessler to look into whether Just, the CEO is fit to do his job.

The CEO discovers that Kessler is investigating him, and tells him that Rose, whose previous name was Kraus, has a Nazi past. Kessler finds out that Just's father headed a Nazi extermination group on the Eastern Front during World War Two.

Jews placed in the back of a closed truck were killed with the truck's exhaust gas, and a device called a 'heartbeat detector' was applied to find out who had survived. Tormented by this memory, J?st attempts suicide. The action then shifts from the company's politics to the Holocaust.

The film won the Golden Swan for The Best Actor (Mathieu Amalric) at the Copenhagen Film Festival (Denmark), Best Actor (Mathieu Amalric) and Best Art Direction (Antoine Platteau) at the Gijon Film Festival (Spain), and the Critics Award - International (Nicolas Klotz) at the Sao Paulo Film Festival (Brazil).

Entry to the film screening is free. Please contact the Alliance Francaise at 2770-0734/2770-0736 or Bh S S Prakash Reddy of the Hyderabad Film Club at 2373-0841/93910-20243 for further details.