Antonin Baudry & Simon Abkarian Talk French Box Office Hit ‘De Gaulle’: “The National Icon Did Not Exist In 1940” — SkimNews
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- De Gaulle: Resistance and Liberty is an $84 million Pathé production that took more than five years to make and grossed over $50 million in France after its summer release, becoming one of the year’s biggest box-office hits there.
- The American French Film Festival will present both installments back-to-back on Nov. 7 at the DGA Theater Complex during its Nov. 3-8, 2026 program, where ‘De Gaulle: Liberty’ makes its U.S. premiere before a conversation with Antonin Baudry and Simon Abkarian.
- Samuel Goldwyn Films is releasing the title in North America, with the first installment’s U.S. bow on Nov. 6 and the second installment’s Dec. 4 launch following its Nov. 7 festival premiere.
- Antonin Baudry structured the story outside conventional biopic codes, set entirely in 1940-42 with no flashbacks, with de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Fernand Bonnier de la Chapelle as its three predominant characters.
- Charles de Gaulle appears as an isolated and “bizarre” figure rather than the polished national icon; Baudry says, “The national icon did not exist in 1940,” and based that choice on descriptions in contemporary journals.
- Simon Abkarian researched de Gaulle through letters and his own imagination, then chose theatricality over naturalism because the leader built his own persona; he says the film explores “courage, honor and resistance.”
Why it matters: Samuel Goldwyn Films is bringing a film that grossed more than $50 million in France to a North American release beginning Nov. 6, while the second part reaches U.S. festival audiences Nov. 7 ahead of its Dec. 4 launch. American viewers get an unconventional, no-flashback historical epic rather than a conventional national-icon biopic.
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