Cannes Film Festival: Michael Lonsdale

Great Mosque Dept: The setting is 1942 Paris. The city is occupied by German forces. Younes Tahar Rahim is among a slew of Algerian immigrants trying to steer clear of the Nazis and their French collaborators and attempting to eke out a living on the black market. It's not easy, according to Montreal Gazette. In return for his freedom, Younes is essentially blackmailed into spying on fellow Muslims at the Great Mosque of Paris. Both the Germans and the French police believe that the leader of the mosque, Si Kaddour Ben Ghabrit Michael Lonsdale , is supplying forged identification papers to French Jews, thus allowing them to escape the country and avoid a trip to the Nazi death camps and once again, fact proves far more compelling than fiction on screen. Les Hommes libres, historically based, though not a documentary or docudrama, took audiences by surprise when it was presented at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and will likely induce similar reaction when it plays Cinemania on Saturday and Nov. 13. And, not surprisingly, it doesn't work out for very long. Younes soon gets busted. But the French police, much in cahoots with the Germans, offer Younes a deal he figures he can't refuse if he values his life. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.