World War II has always been a point in history that has fascinated filmmakers. The heroics, hardships, and horrors of war are enormous human struggles that make for riveting drama. Some stories throughout various theaters of the European and Pacific campaigns aren’t as well-known as others, so there are endless tales to tell.
British director Steve McQueen (“12 Years A Slave,” the “Small Axe” anthology film series) is going to be trying his hands at covering the subject himself with his documentary “Occupied City,” focusing on the Dutch city of Amsterdam that Nazis occupied. McQueen is married to a Dutch cultural critic and has lived in Amsterdam for the last twenty years, so clearly, he has a deep affection for the city and its place in history. Deadline reports that the new doc will be domestically distributed by A24 and internationally by New Regency; they’ll also co-finance the project alongside Film4.
Netherlands Film Fund, Mondriaan Fund, and Amsterdam Fund for The Arts are also backing the film.
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“Occupied City,” which is in production, is based on the illustrated book “Atlas of An Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945,” written by author and filmmaker Bianca Stigter, who just happens to be the aforementioned wife of McQueen. It also reportedly has a decent budget of $5 million, which is a lot for a European-backed documentary.
Per capita, the Netherlands is said to have had the most people hiding from occupying forces during the war. An example of this would be the famous story of Anne Frank, a Jewish girl being hidden in a house in Amsterdam from the Nazis, chronicling her experience in a diary that was later published, becoming one of the most world-renowned books about hiding from the Nazis in WWII.
Like France, Nazi-occupied Netherlands had its own resistance force and network of spies working alongside allied troops throughout the war. The Dutch Resistance was the focus of feature films such as “Black Book” and “Soldier of Orange” from director Paul Verhoeven.
McQueen also co-produced Bianca Stigter’s Holocaust documentary “Three Minutes — A Lengthening,” narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, which is expected to be released this year and will co-direct the three-part BBC race relations doc series “Uprising“ with James Rogan that is set in the U.K. during 1981.