The best Yann Collette’s history movies

France, 1815. After his defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon heads for exile. Royalists occupy Paris and attempt to restore the monarchy. However, the battle doesn't seem to be over. On July 6, Talleyrand, a shrewd politician of flexible convictions, invites chief of police and zealous revolutionary Fouché to supper and tries to convince him to serve the king. Over the meal they insult each other, accuse each other, and, at first sight, look like mortal enemies. But they definitely have one thing in common: they are both power-hungry.

Starting in 1944 in the wake of the Liberation and continuing into the '60s, 'houses of hope' were established to lend a semblance of continuity to youngsters orpahaned by the war. Nina's Home takes place between September 1944 and January 1946 in an orphanage housed in a chateau outside Paris. At the outset, the country residence is run by Nina who has a core population of French Jewish children whose parents are probably dead. Food is scarce. News of the Concentration Camps hasn't hit yet, but some months later, a contingent of youths arrive form the liberated camps. The children are a disparate, wild, damaged group and conflicts ensue. Nina's challenge is to help them make their first delicate moves toward the future and in the process restore all of them, including herself, to life.