| Female Agents | |
| Director: | Jean-Paul Salomé |
| Producer: | Éric Névé |
| Music: | Bruno Coulais |
| Cinematography: | Pascal Ridao |
| Editing: | Marie-Pierre Renaud |
| Distributor: | TFM Distribution |
| Runtime: | 112 minutes |
| Country: | France |
| Language: | French German English |
| Budget: | $19.6 million [1] |
| Gross: | $9.3 million [2] |
Female Agents (French: Les Femmes de l'ombre) is a 2008 French historical drama film directed by Jean-Paul Salomé and starring Sophie Marceau, Julie Depardieu, Marie Gillain, Déborah François, and Moritz Bleibtreu.[3] Written by Salomé and Laurent Vachaud, the film is about female resistance fighters in the Second World War. Jean-Paul Salomé, the director, drew inspiration from an obituary in The Times newspaper[4] of Lise de Baissac (Lise Villameur), from Mauritius (then a British colony), one of the heroines of the SOE, named "Louise Desfontaines" in the film and played by Sophie Marceau. The film was partly funded by BBC Films.
In May 1944 Louise Desfontaines (Sophie Marceau), a member of the French Resistance, flees to Spain after her husband is killed, where she is captured and later expatriated to London. She is recruited by the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the secret spy and sabotage service initiated by Winston Churchill. Louise is given an urgent first mission: to extricate a British agent (Conrad Cecil) who has fallen into German hands while preparing the invasion of Normandy. The agent has not yet revealed anything but time is pressing.
Louise must first create a commando group of women especially chosen for the needs of the operation. When it comes to recruitment, anything goes: lies, blackmail, bribery (through the offer of remission of a death sentence) and calls to carry out patriotic duty. She first employs Suzy Desprez (Marie Gillain), a cabaret dancer who excels in the art of seducing men. Then she brings in Gaëlle Lemenech (Déborah François), a chemist and explosives expert. Finally she selects Jeanne Faussier (Julie Depardieu), a prostitute capable of killing in cold blood. After their arrival in Normandy, they are joined by Maria Luzzato (Maya Sansa), an Italian Jew and radio operator.
The mission gets under way well, but quickly becomes complicated. They are obliged to return to Paris, where the SOE gives them a new, almost suicidal, objective: to eliminate Colonel Heindrich, one of the key figures of Nazi counter-espionage. He knows too much about the planned landings.
While the film received general positive reviews from French critics, certain resistance veterans from the time have criticised it saying it portrayed them as "coerced into joining the resistance", not joining through patriotism.[6]
The film won the Radio-Canada Audience Award at the 2010 edition of the Cinéfranco film festival.