OCCUPIED CITY Luminaries

A monumental accomplishment, Steve McQueen’s (12 YEARS A SLAVE, AFI FEST 2013) rigorous documentary systematically explores Amsterdam under the Nazi occupation of WWII. Rejecting archival footage and first-person narratives, the film excavates history by telling the city’s story one address at a time. Each catalogued entry describes the cruel fate of its residents and is accompanied by present day footage of Amsterdam. From the locations as they stand today, to the COVID lockdown and the extremist protests in response, McQueen (an Amsterdam resident himself) draws powerful connections between past and present. Based on the astonishingly researched book “Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945” by Dutch filmmaker and journalist Bianca Stigter, this epic four-and-a-half-hour opus (including a breathtaking intermission) is a testament to the brutal scale of the occupation. –Josh Gardner