France, September 1940. The 49-year-old engineer Henri Marre (Swann Arlaud, Anatomie d’une chute) arrives in Vichy alone. With no connections, he tries to secure a position within the new regime. In his suitcase is Notre salut, a political manuscript he has written himself, which he is determined to have published at any cost. Henri claims he wants to save France from ruin, but it gradually becomes clear that he is primarily trying to save himself.

Director Emmanuel Marre (Rien à foutre) drew inspiration for the film from some 300 letters written by his own grandparents. Rather than idealising his family history, he paints a razor-sharp portrait of a man whose convictions are largely dictated by whatever suits him best at any given moment. In times of war, opportunism all too easily turns into collaboration. Marre casts all this in a surprisingly playful mould: a war drama that illustrates Hannah Arendt’s ‘banality of evil’ in its unadulterated ordinariness, in a blend of The Office and The Zone of Interest. Notre salut had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where Marre won the award for Best Screenplay.