My Brother’s Band
Variously described by critics as ‘cinema for the soul’, ‘heart-warming’ and ‘a crowd pleaser in the old-fashioned sense’, this film deals with two brothers who are separated when young. One is placed in a working-class family with no opportunity to develop his musical talents; the other into a world which allows him to become a world-famous conductor of classical music. Their connection is forged when the conductor Thibaut (Bernard Lavernche) becomes ill and needs a life-saving bone-marrow transplant from his lost biological brother Jimmy (Pierre Lotin), who works in a school canteen. Director Emmanuel Courcol explores how privilege affects life choices as well as the power of music. The recipient of multiple awards, it is billed as ‘Separated by Fate, Reunited by Music’.