Collaboration (2019)

“Collaboration is an outstanding project of high professional calibre…”  (Carolyn Jess-Cooke, author)

Collaboration is set in 1940s Paris. Following the Liberation of France, the French singer, Edith Piaf, was investigated for charges of collaborating with the Nazi régime during the Occupation. Piaf was a performer, a survivor and a pragmatist. She was a woman who lived by her own talents and values: for her, music stood beyond politics. Edith herself said: 'Ne pas chanter, c’est mourir' ('Not to sing is to die').

Collaboration explores the story through the relationships of three women: Edith herself and two of her closest associates, Simone Berteaut and Andrée Bigard.  It examines themes of truth and interpretation, loyalty and lies, and raises very current questions about collaboration: by living, unheedingly, under destructive governments, how far can we be said to be colluding with their values and actions?