''Blame It on Fidel'' (french: La Faute à Fidel) is a 2006 French-Italian

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Julie Gavras Julie Gavras is a French film director and screenwriter. She is known for her film '' Blame It on Fidel'' (2006). Life and career After graduate studies in literature and law, Julie Gavras turned to cinema. Gavras started as an assistant directo ...

. The screenplay, written by Gavras, is based on Domitilla Calamai's Italian novel of the same name. The film stars Nina Kervel-Bey,

Julie Depardieu Julie Marion Depardieu (born 18 June 1973) is a French actress who has appeared in a number of successful films. Early life Born 18 June 1973 in Paris, she is the daughter of Gérard and Élisabeth Depardieu and the sister of the late Guillaume D ...

, and

Stefano Accorsi Stefano Lelio Beniamino Accorsi (; born 2 March 1971) is an Italian actor. Early life and background Accorsi was born in Bologna. He graduated from Bologna's Theatrical School in 1993, and acted in the theatre for several years before moving to ...

. The film covers an array of philosophy and ideology - everything from

Communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

to Greek and Asian

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...

- which the protagonist must reconstruct from confusion into her own set of beliefs.

Plot

Nine-year-old Anna de la Mesa weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

. Her Spanish-born lawyer father Fernando is inspired by his sister's opposition to

Franco Franco may refer to: Name * Franco (name) * Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975 * Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître" Prefix * Franco, a prefix used when ref ...

and by

Salvador Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fir ...

's victory in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

; he quits his job and becomes a liaison for Chilean activists in France. Her mother, Marie, a ''

Marie Claire ''Marie Claire'' is a French international monthly magazine first published in France in 1937, followed by the United Kingdom in 1941. Since then various editions are published in many countries and languages. The feature editions focus on wo ...

'' journalist-turned-writer documenting the stories of women's

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pregn ...

ordeals, supports her husband and climbs aboard the ideological bandwagon. As a result, Anna's French bourgeois life is over. She must adjust to refugee nannies, international cuisine, and a cramped apartment full of noisy revolutionaries.

Cast

* Nina Kervel-Bey as Anna de la Mesa *

as Marie de la Mesa *

as Fernando de la Mesa * Benjamin Feuillet as François de la Mesa *

Marie Kremer Marie Kremer (born 15 April 1982 in Uccle) is a Belgian actress. Her first leading role was in the 2003 movie ''I Always Wanted to be a Saint'' (''J'ai toujours voulu être une sainte'')., for which she won the Créteil International Women's Fi ...

as Isabelle *

Raphaël Personnaz Raphaël Personnaz (born 23 July 1981) is a French actor. He has appeared in more than fifty films since 1998. He was awarded the Prix Patrick Dewaere in 2013. Personal life Born 23 July 1981 in France, his father was a furniture designer and hi ...

as Mathieu *

Carole Franck Carole Franck (born 1970 in Paris) is a French actress. Filmography Dubbing Theatre References External links * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Franck, Carole Living people French film actresses French television actresses Actresses from Par ...

as Sister Geneviève *

Martine Chevallier Martine Chevallier (born 1949 in Gap, Hautes-Alpes, France) is a French actress. Career Martine Chevallier joined the Conservatoire national supérieur d’art dramatique in the class of Antoine Vitez and won the first prize in 1974. In 1986, ...

as Bonne Maman *

Olivier Perrier Olivier Perrier (born 15 September 1940) is a French actor. He appeared in more than forty films since 1972. Selected filmography References External links * 1940 births Living people French male film actors {{France-film-act ...

as Bon Papa

Release

''Blame It on Fidel''

premiered A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its first ...

at the

Deauville American Film Festival The Deauville American Film Festival (french: Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville, link=no) is a yearly film festival devoted to American cinema, which has taken place since 1975 in Deauville, France. It was established by Lionel Cho ...

on 10 September 2006 and opened theatrically in France on 29 November that year. It opened in North American release on 3 August 2007.

Box office

The film earned $9,004 in its opening weekend, ranking number 64 in the domestic box office. It went on to gross $168,065 domestically and $1,192,178 overseas for a worldwide total of $1,360,243.

Critical reception

The film holds a 93% approval rating on review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

based on 45 critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, the film has a 74/100 rating, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* * * *
IONCINEMA.com interview with Julie Gavras
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blame It On Fidel 2006 films 2000s historical drama films French historical drama films Italian historical drama films 2000s French-language films Films set in Paris Films set in 1970 Films set in 1971 Films set in the 1970s Films shot in France Films shot in Paris Films shot in Spain Gaumont Film Company films 2006 drama films 2000s French films