Vincent Gazaigne

In Czechoslovakia, between 1946 and 1971, the characters of two very different fairy tales interacted and enriched each other: on the one hand, the filmmakers of the Czechoslovak New Wave who, through poetic, committed and ambitious cinema, fought against the Soviet yoke with subtle irony; and, on the other, the writer Jan Procházka, who in 1968 added his voice to the popular outcry of the Prague Spring.

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.

Great filmmakers claim the artistic influence of French director Henri-Georges Clouzot (1907-1977), a master of suspense, with a unique vision of the world, who knew how to offer both great shows and subtle studies of characters. Beyond the myth of the tyrannical director, a contrasting portrait of a visionary, an agitator, an artist against the system.

Using testimonies by pioneers and witnesses of the times, delve into the feverish visual culture the media generated – with far-fetched examples of canine television games, seduction manuals, aerobics class while holding a baby, among others.

For a very long time, the French government has chosen to ignore the Vichy regime, its collaboration with Nazi Germany and its crimes, in an attempt to erase the past and reconcile all French citizens. Although historians, writers and filmmakers have helped develop a certain awareness on this controversial subject, it has been mostly civil society that has led the fight against falsification and denial, in the name of truth and justice.