Farewell, Mr. Haffmann, a historical drama directed by Fred Cavayé starring Daniel Auteuil, Gilles Lellouche and Sara Giraudeau, lands on France 2 on Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 9:10 p.m. Released in cinemas on January 12, 2022, the film adapts Jean-Philippe Daguerre’s play and relocates its action to occupied Paris, centered on an agreement between a Jewish jeweler and his employee.
Adieu Monsieur Haffmann
Film | 2022
Theatrical release: January 12, 2022
TV broadcast: France 2, Sunday, April 12, 2026 at 9:10 PM
Drama, Historical | Runtime: 1h56
Directed by Fred Cavayé | Starring Daniel Auteuil, Gilles Lellouche, Sara Giraudeau
Nationality: France
Adieu Monsieur Haffmann began life as a stage play written and directed by Jean-Philippe Daguerre, premiering in 2016 and winning four Molières in 2018. A long-running hit, notably at the theatre Tristan Bernard, it was later adapted for cinema by Fred Cavayé, who preserves the initial premise while reworking certain characters.
The plot unfolds in Paris in 1941. François Mercier simply wants to build a life with Blanche, but he also works for Mr. Haffmann, a jeweler threatened by anti-Semitic persecution. The agreement struck between the two men becomes the engine of a claustrophobic, intimate drama, where relations of dependence, power, and survival shift as the Occupation unfolds.
The film also gives Fred Cavayé the chance to reunite with Gilles Lellouche, whom he had already directed in A bout portant, Les Infidèles and Mea Culpa. Opposite him, Daniel Auteuil takes the title role, while Sara Giraudeau completes this central trio. The screenplay is by Fred Cavayé and Sarah Kaminsky.
This adaptation leans into an intimate-thriller feel and a tightly constrained setting, delivered with a claustrophobic sensibility the director has embraced. The shoot, halted by the Covid-19 pandemic, also prompted the team to rethink certain sequences tied to the Occupation, sometimes privileging the traces violence leaves behind over its direct depiction.
The film places its story in the lineage of a well-known stage work, while retooling it for a piece of historical, psychological cinema. Its broadcast on France 2 casts a spotlight on a French adaptation that centers on moral tension, shifts in power, and the compromises dictated by the era.
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