i watched 0ccupied city, thinking of the nightmare my family avoided. the film did what powerful art can do unlock emotions we don t know we have. there were a lot of tears. there we are so resilient, human beings, and whatever is in front of us, we keep on going. do we have a choice? not really. because we don t know what is around the corner. and i think that s that hopefully is the triumph of the film, that let s not forget, let s not forget. real world events have a habit of changing the way in which a film is experienced at the cannes film festival. it happened this year with the first picture from sudan ever to have made it into the official selection. it was to have been an historic moment of triumph for the filmmaking team, but, instead, it also became an occasion of sadness and anxiety over the fate of their country,
at the heart of steve mcqueen s new film, 0ccupied city, inspired by a book his wife, film director bianca stigter, wrote, called atlas of an 0ccupied city. mcqueen and his wife live in amsterdam. his film is a door to door iteration of the horrors the nazis wrought, as well as a more contemporary portrait of the dutch city at the time of the pandemic. only one still image was given out to journalists, otherwise we would being showing you a clip. the book documents, let s say, street by street and house by house, and sometimes even floor by floor the extremes of what happened during the second world war. it was kind of written as a kind of travel guide to the past of amsterdam, you could say. and steve now used those addresses, and you hear what happened there in the past, but you see
this is my grandfather, werner friedrich brook, a germanjew in breslau. when hitler came to power, he was forced into retirement. he lost hisjob, his home, his status. a broken man, he went to the netherlands, as did many other germanjews. most of them perished, while my grandfather and his family found safe haven in britain. i cried the whole time i watched 0ccupied city, thinking of the nightmare my family avoided. the film did what powerful art can do unlock emotions we don t know we have. there were a lot of tears. there we are so resilient, human beings, and whatever is in front of us, we keep on going. do we have a choice? not really. because we don t know what is around the corner. and i think that s that hopefully is the triumph of the film, that let s not forget, let s not forget. real world events have a habit of changing the way in which a film is experienced at the cannes film festival. it happened this year with the first
than the first time. there s no there was no expectation. and once the film had finished, we were ushered on stage, standing ovation for 20 minutes. michael fassbender was in tears. it was incredible. since hunger, steve mcqueen has made some memorable films, including the oscar winning 12 years a slave. we retrieved this footage from the bbc s archives. it shows the nazi occupation of amsterdam, which lies at the heart of steve mcqueen s new film, 0ccupied city, inspired by a book his wife, film director bianca stigter, wrote, called atlas of an 0ccupied city. mcqueen and his wife live in amsterdam. his film is a door to door iteration of the horrors the nazis wrought, as well as a more contemporary portrait of the dutch city at the time of the pandemic. only one still image was given out to journalists, otherwise we would being showing you a clip.