Raymond Roman Thierry Polański is a French and Polish film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, ten César Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, as well as the Golden Bear and a Palme d'Or.
Émile Édouard Charles Antoine Zola was a French novelist, journalist, playwright, the best-known practitioner of the literary school of naturalism, and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism. He was a major figure in the political liberalization of France and in the exoneration of the falsely accused and convicted army officer Alfred Dreyfus, which is encapsulated in his renowned newspaper opinion headlined J'Accuse…! Zola was nominated for the first and second Nobel Prize in Literature in 1901 and 1902.
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided the Third French Republic from 1894 until its resolution in 1906. L'Affaire Dreyfus has come to symbolise modern injustice in the Francophone world; it remains one of the most notable examples of a complex miscarriage of justice and antisemitism. The role played by the press and public opinion proved influential in the conflict.
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish ancestry from Alsace whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most polarizing political dramas in modern French history. The incident has gone down in history as the Dreyfus affair, the reverberations from which were felt throughout Europe. It ultimately ended with Dreyfus' complete exoneration.
Charles Marie Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy was an officer in the French Army from 1870 to 1898. He gained notoriety as a spy for the German Empire and the actual perpetrator of the act of treason of which Captain Alfred Dreyfus was wrongfully accused and convicted of in 1894.
Robert Dennis Harris is a British novelist and former journalist. Although he began his career in journalism and non-fiction, his fame rests upon his works of historical fiction. Beginning with the best-seller Fatherland, Harris focused on events surrounding the Second World War, followed by works set in ancient Rome. His most recent works centre on contemporary history. Harris was educated at Selwyn College, Cambridge, where he was president of the Cambridge Union and editor of the student newspaper Varsity.
While Alfred Dreyfus was serving his sentence on Devil's Island, in France a number of people began to question his guilt. The most notable of these was Major Georges Picquart.
Louis Garrel is a French actor and filmmaker. He is best known for his starring role in The Dreamers, directed by Bernardo Bertolucci. He has regularly appeared in films by French director Christophe Honoré, including Ma Mère, Dans Paris, Love Songs, The Beautiful Person and Making Plans for Lena. He has also been in films directed by his father, Philippe Garrel, including Regular Lovers, Frontier of the Dawn, A Burning Hot Summer, and Jealousy.
Marie-Georges Picquart was a French Army officer and Minister of War. He is best known for his role in the Dreyfus affair, in which he played a key role in uncovering the real culprit.
Hubert-Joseph Henry was a French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell. He was considered a hero by the Anti-Dreyfusards.
The Ghost is a 2007 political thriller by the best-selling English novelist and journalist Robert Harris. In 2010, the novel was adapted into a film, The Ghost Writer, directed by Roman Polanski and starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, for which Polanski and Harris co-wrote the screenplay.
"J'Accuse...!" is an open letter that was published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L'Aurore by Émile Zola in response to the Dreyfus affair. Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused his government of antisemitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French Army General Staff officer who was sentenced to lifelong penal servitude for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for libel and found guilty on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.
Jean Edmond Dujardin is a French actor and comedian. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in Paris before guest starring in comedic television programmes and films. He first came to prominence with the cult TV series Un gars, une fille, in which he starred alongside his partner Alexandra Lamy, before gaining success in film with movies such as Brice de Nice, Michel Hazanavicius's OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and its sequel OSS 117: Lost in Rio, as well as 99 Francs.
La Dépêche tunisienne was a French language daily newspaper published in Tunisia.
The Ghost Writer is a 2010 neo-noir political thriller film directed by Roman Polanski. The film is an adaptation of a 2007 Robert Harris novel, The Ghost, with the screenplay written by Polanski and Harris. It stars Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Cattrall, and Olivia Williams.
Charles Armand Auguste Ferdinand Mercier du Paty de Clam was a French army officer, an amateur graphologist, and a key figure in the Dreyfus affair.
Möbius is a 2013 French film written and directed by Éric Rochant, and starring Jean Dujardin and Cécile de France.
George Gabriel de Pellieux was a French army officer who was best known for ignoring evidence during the Dreyfus affair, a scandal in which a Jewish officer was convicted of treason on the basis of a forgery.
An Officer and a Spy is a 2019 historical drama film directed by Roman Polanski about the Dreyfus affair, with a screenplay by Polanski and Robert Harris based on Harris's 2013 novel of the same name. The name J'Accuse has its origins in Émile Zola's bold article in l'Aurore in January 1898 in which the famous author accused many persons of France of continuing to support the increasingly blatantly erroneous accusations against Dreyfus.
OSS 117: From Africa with Love is a 2021 French spy comedy film directed by Nicolas Bedos from a screenplay by Jean-François Halin. It is the eleventh film based on the Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath / OSS 117 character created by Jean Bruce and the third in the parody series starring Jean Dujardin as a comedic take on the titular character, preceded by OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies (2006) and OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009), both of which were directed by Michel Hazanavicius.
