070 – In Darkness (2011)

spacetime coordinates: June 1943 – July 1944  Lwów city, Poland

(DISTURBING CONTENT)

In Darkness (Polish: W ciemności) is a 2011 Polish drama film directed by Agnieszka Holland. Dedicated to Marek Edelman, the film is a Polish-German-Canadian coproduction, with a screenplay by Canadian writer David F. Shamoon. In Darkness is based on the book In the Sewers of Lvov (1990) by Robert Marshall. The only living survivor of the group, Krystyna Chiger, has written a memoir of her experience, The Girl in the Green Sweater: A Life in Holocaust’s Shadow (2008), which was published too late to be a source

Based on true events during German occupation of Poland, the film tells a story of Leopold Socha, a sewer worker in the then Polish city of Lwów (taken after World War II by the Soviet Union, and now part of Ukraine), who used his knowledge of the city’s sewer system to shelter a group of Jews escaped from Lwów’s ghetto during the German extermination of Jewish people.

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“‘These were terrible times’: the true story behind In Darkness”

063 – Schindler’s List (1993)

spacetime coordinates:  Kraków during World War II 

Schindler’s List is a 1993 American epic historical period drama film directed and co-produced by Steven Spielberg and scripted by Steven Zaillian. It is based on the novel Schindler’s Ark by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally. The film relates a period in the life of Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German businessman, during which he saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. It stars Liam Neeson as Schindler, Ralph Fiennes as SS officer Amon Göth, and Ben Kingsley as Schindler’s Jewish accountant Itzhak Stern.

development

Due to the increased interest in Kraków created by the film, the city bought Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory in 2007 to create a permanent exhibition about the German occupation of the city from 1939 to 1945. The museum opened in June 2010.

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049 – Shirley: Visions of Reality (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 

saturday, august 28th 1931 paris, 11 p.m.
sunday, august 28th 1932 new york, 9 p.m.
monday, august 28th 1939 new york, 10 p.m.

wednesday, august 28th 1940 new york, 10 p.m.
friday, august 28th 1942 new haven, 8 p.m.

thursday, august 28th 1952 new york, 6 a.m.
tuesday, august 28th 1956 new york, 9 a.m.
wednesday, august 28th 1957 pacific palisades, 6 p.m.
friday, august 28th 1959 cape cod, 11 a.m.

monday, august 28th 1961 cape cod, 7 a.m.
wednesday, august 28th 1963 albany, 7 p.m.
thursday, august 28th 1963 albany, 9 a.m.

Faithfully reproducing 13 of Edward Hopper‘s tableaux three-dimensionally on set, the basis of the film is the story of an independent and opinionated New York actress (Stephanie Cumming) whose life we follow through three turbulent decades of American history, from 1931’s Great Depression to the Riots of 1963.

“Unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city,” Edward Hopper once remarked of his masterpiece Nighthawks, the famous scene depicting a downtown diner late at night. In fact, many pieces in Hopper’s oeuvre, a sun-drenched yet grimly nostalgic memento of midcentury modern America, depict solitary figures engaged in an act of reflection. Whether we see them deep in thought in the morning sun or swallowing whisky at a bar after dark, Hopper’s paintings conjure a sense of curiosity for his subjects’ past – and indeed, Vienna-born director Gustav Deutsch was so inspired by this aura of mystery that he decided to create Shirley: Visions of Reality, an exquisite example of interdisciplinary cinema based on the imagery in Hopper’s paintings.

read more: www.anothermag.com

0048 – Der Untergang (2004)

spacetime coordinate: April – May 1945, Germany / Battle of Berlin / the Führerbunker

Downfall (German: Der Untergang) is a 2004 German-Italian-Austrian historical war drama film depicting the final 12 days of Adolf Hitler‘s rule over Nazi Germany in 1945. It was based on several histories of the period.

The film begins with an excerpt from the documentary Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary (2002), featuring the real Traudl Junge expressing her guilt and shame for admiring Hitler in her youth. The film continues showing Hitler (Bruno Ganz) hiring Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara) as his secretary at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia in November 1942.

The story resumes on 20 April 1945, the Führer’s birthday, during the Battle of Berlin.

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047 – The Imitation Game (2014)

spacetime coordinate: United Kingdom during ww2

The Imitation Game is a 2014 American historical drama thriller film directed by Morten Tyldum and written by Graham Moore loosely based on the biography Alan Turing: The Enigma by Andrew Hodges . It stars Benedict Cumberbatch as real-life British cryptanalyst Alan Turing, who decrypted German intelligence codes for the British government during World War II.

Controversy

Accuracy

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0033 – Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970)

spacetime coordinate: 19th century Slavonice

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czech: Valerie a týden divů) is a 1970 Czechoslovakian surrealist horror film directed by Jaromil Jireš (1935–2001) and based on the 1945 novel of the same name by Vítězslav Nezval (1900–1958). It is considered part of the Czech New Wave movement.

The 1970 film adaptation of Valerie a týden divů was shot in 1969 starring 13-year-old Jaroslava Schallerová as Valerie, with a supporting cast of Helena Anýžová, Karel Engel, Jan Klusák, Petr Kopriva, among others. It was filmed in the Czech town of Slavonice and surrounding areas. The film portrays the heroine as living in a disorienting dream, cajoled by priests, vampires, men and women alike, and blends elements of fantasy and horror films.

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Promotional trailer advertising the first public screening of a newly discovered print of Jaromil Jire’s legendary erotic horror-fantasy HERE

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006 – El abrazo de la serpiente 2015

spacetime coordinate: 1909 / 1940 the amazon rainforest

Embrace of the Serpent  is a 2015 internationally co-produced adventure drama film directed by Ciro Guerra and shot in black-and-white.

The film tells two stories thirty years apart, both featuring Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and last survivor of his tribe. He travels with two scientists, firstly with German Theo von Martius in 1909 and American named Evan in 1940, to look for the rare yakruna, a (fictional) sacred plant.

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Evan: It’s a lot of money. Chullachaqui: Ants like money. I Do not. The taste is bad.