The story of Django Reinhardt, famous guitarist and composer, and his flight from German-occupied Paris in 1943.
Acting
Reda Kateb's hands do the talking—literally, he learned gypsy jazz for this.
Score
Actual Django compositions performed with painful historical weight.
Production
1943 Paris recreated with claustrophobic, smoky authenticity.
Director
Étienne Comar
Reda Kateb
Django Reinhardt
Cécile de France
Louise de Klerk
Bea Palya
Naguine Reinhardt
Bimbam Merstein
Negros Reinhardt
Gabriel Mireté
'La Plume'
Johnny Montreuil
Joseph Reinhardt, aka 'Nin-Nin'
Vincent Frade
Fouad, aka 'Tam Tam '
Raphaël Dever
Louis Vola
Patrick Mille
Charles Delaunay
Xavier Beauvois
STO doctor
Esther Comar
Stella, the Hot-Club assistant
Jan Henrik Stahlberg
Dietrich, aka 'Dr. Jazz'
Hugues Jourdain
'Rossignol'
Ulrich Brandhoff
Hammerstein
Àlex Brendemühl
Hans Biber
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Reda Kateb spent six months learning gypsy jazz guitar, performing all his own fretwork. The real Django played with two fingers after a fire—Kateb refused prosthetics.
The film sparked controversy among Sinti communities for romanticizing Django while hundreds of thousands of Romani people were murdered in the Porajmos—often called the 'forgotten Holocaust.'
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