The opening of Steve McQueen’s “Widows” is a great example of how filmmaking encourages us to create stories in our heads that exist across space and time. There’s a fantastic, rhythmic seesaw between domestic moments between a set of couples and moments of the men running from a heist gone wrong; in the intertwining of the two —with sound matches that couldn’t be coming from more different sources but still audibly line up — McQueen and editor Joe Walker lead the viewer to conclusions about who these thieves are in the moments right before they are no more.
“Occupied City,” McQueen’s latest film, expands on this particularly cinematic capacity to create story via the deliberate selection and omission of imagery — which is a roundabout way of saying that it’s a film about the Nazi Occupation of Amsterdam during World War II that doesn’t use archive footage,...
“Occupied City,” McQueen’s latest film, expands on this particularly cinematic capacity to create story via the deliberate selection and omission of imagery — which is a roundabout way of saying that it’s a film about the Nazi Occupation of Amsterdam during World War II that doesn’t use archive footage,...
- 1/4/2024
- by Sarah Shachat
- Indiewire
Director Steve McQueen said his unusual four-hour Holocaust documentary shot in Amsterdam is rooted in his strong sense that “the past is present” in physical manifestations all around us, as well as a reminder to stay vigilant.
“It’s very cliche, but we have to not forget. Because see what’s happening now in the politics of the world…things are shifting to the right. And if anything, you know, your book, this film, hopefully can be a reminder of what’s at stake, and it’s freedom,” the director of 12 Years A Slave and upcoming Blitz said Sunday as the film screened at the New York Film Festival. The book refers to ‘Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945’ by Bianca Stigter, McQueen’s wife, a filmmaker (Three Minutes: A Lengthening) and historian. Her Atlas is a compedium of addresses around the city where Nazi atrocities unfolded during...
“It’s very cliche, but we have to not forget. Because see what’s happening now in the politics of the world…things are shifting to the right. And if anything, you know, your book, this film, hopefully can be a reminder of what’s at stake, and it’s freedom,” the director of 12 Years A Slave and upcoming Blitz said Sunday as the film screened at the New York Film Festival. The book refers to ‘Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945’ by Bianca Stigter, McQueen’s wife, a filmmaker (Three Minutes: A Lengthening) and historian. Her Atlas is a compedium of addresses around the city where Nazi atrocities unfolded during...
- 10/1/2023
- by Jill Goldsmith
- Deadline Film + TV
Tourists in Amsterdam typically stop at the Anne Frank House, but the ever-moving conga line of visitors tends to work against reflecting on the reality of its rooms. Steve McQueen’s Occupied City opens up a space for contemplation of a hundred-plus houses, buildings, and other sites across Amsterdam that are marked by World War II and the Holocaust in some way, tracing scars and trauma that may no longer be visible, much less widely known. Informed by an illustrated book by McQueen’s partner, Bianca Stigter (who directed Three Minutes: A Lengthening), it’s a living atlas: scenes of pandemic-era Amsterdam, overlaid […]
The post “Sometimes the Present Erases the Past, and Sometimes the Past Erases the Present”: Steve McQueen on His Cannes-Premiering Occupied City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Sometimes the Present Erases the Past, and Sometimes the Past Erases the Present”: Steve McQueen on His Cannes-Premiering Occupied City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/25/2023
- by Nicolas Rapold
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Tourists in Amsterdam typically stop at the Anne Frank House, but the ever-moving conga line of visitors tends to work against reflecting on the reality of its rooms. Steve McQueen’s Occupied City opens up a space for contemplation of a hundred-plus houses, buildings, and other sites across Amsterdam that are marked by World War II and the Holocaust in some way, tracing scars and trauma that may no longer be visible, much less widely known. Informed by an illustrated book by McQueen’s partner, Bianca Stigter (who directed Three Minutes: A Lengthening), it’s a living atlas: scenes of pandemic-era Amsterdam, overlaid […]
The post “Sometimes the Present Erases the Past, and Sometimes the Past Erases the Present”: Steve McQueen on His Cannes-Premiering Occupied City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “Sometimes the Present Erases the Past, and Sometimes the Past Erases the Present”: Steve McQueen on His Cannes-Premiering Occupied City first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 5/25/2023
- by Nicolas Rapold
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Editor’s note: This review was originally published at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. A24 releases the film in limited theaters on Monday, December 25.
A four-and-a-half-hour World War II documentary that doesn’t include a single frame of archival footage or talking head testimony, Steve McQueen’s provocative but emotionally stultifying “Occupied City” refracts the fading memory of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam through the prism of the city’s more recent Covid lockdown — a rare pause in the flow of time, and one that McQueen eagerly seized upon as a chance to measure its powers of erosion.
The film’s conceit is as simple as it is almost immediately numbing: Each of its 130 fragments is dedicated to a different address throughout the city, the past and present of these sites fractured across two parallel timelines that are offered to us all at once. While our ears listen to monotone narrator Melanie Hyams list...
A four-and-a-half-hour World War II documentary that doesn’t include a single frame of archival footage or talking head testimony, Steve McQueen’s provocative but emotionally stultifying “Occupied City” refracts the fading memory of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam through the prism of the city’s more recent Covid lockdown — a rare pause in the flow of time, and one that McQueen eagerly seized upon as a chance to measure its powers of erosion.
The film’s conceit is as simple as it is almost immediately numbing: Each of its 130 fragments is dedicated to a different address throughout the city, the past and present of these sites fractured across two parallel timelines that are offered to us all at once. While our ears listen to monotone narrator Melanie Hyams list...
- 5/17/2023
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City,” an experimental documentary about Amsterdam under Nazi rule, clocks in at a menacing four-and-a-half hours with one intermission — but the filmmaker makes no apologies for its heft. “It wasn’t a case of wanting to do something long,” he said over Zoom from his home in the same city where the movie takes place. “It was a case of wanting to do something right.”
It could have run much longer: McQueen shot 36 hours worth of material, nine times more than the final cut. The movie, which premieres at Cannes this week, pairs footage of modern-day Amsterdam with dry narration by performance artist Melanie Hyams about the Nazi persecution of the Jews that took place. The voiceover culls from the book “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945),” by his wife, Dutch journalist and documentarian Bianca Stigter. “It needed to be a journey so you get to know the city,...
It could have run much longer: McQueen shot 36 hours worth of material, nine times more than the final cut. The movie, which premieres at Cannes this week, pairs footage of modern-day Amsterdam with dry narration by performance artist Melanie Hyams about the Nazi persecution of the Jews that took place. The voiceover culls from the book “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945),” by his wife, Dutch journalist and documentarian Bianca Stigter. “It needed to be a journey so you get to know the city,...
- 5/16/2023
- by Eric Kohn
- Indiewire
Exclusive: The UK Jewish Film Festival (November 10-20) has revealed its lineup of 2022 gala screenings and premieres, including special presentations of the single shot drama Shttl and Three Minutes: A Lengthening, the WWII drama co-produced by Steve McQueen and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter.
Shttl will screen as the festival’s Centerpiece Gala. The film’s director Ady Walter and producer Jean-Charles Lévy will be in attendance. Shot in a village constructed for the production and filmed in one long shot, the film captures the lives of the inhabitants of a Yiddish-speaking village on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Soviet Ukraine.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening, the directorial debut from dutch writer Bianca Stigter, will have its UK premiere during the festival. The film is narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and is composed entirely of a three-minute fragment of 16mm film from 1938. Uncovered and tirelessly restored, the documentary...
Shttl will screen as the festival’s Centerpiece Gala. The film’s director Ady Walter and producer Jean-Charles Lévy will be in attendance. Shot in a village constructed for the production and filmed in one long shot, the film captures the lives of the inhabitants of a Yiddish-speaking village on the eve of the Nazi invasion of Soviet Ukraine.
Three Minutes: A Lengthening, the directorial debut from dutch writer Bianca Stigter, will have its UK premiere during the festival. The film is narrated by Helena Bonham Carter and is composed entirely of a three-minute fragment of 16mm film from 1938. Uncovered and tirelessly restored, the documentary...
- 9/16/2022
- by Zac Ntim
- Deadline Film + TV
In 1938, David Kurtz traveled from his home in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for a vacation across Europe. He stopped in the small Polish village of Nasielsk, where he was born — a pinpoint on the map that would have been ignored by any tourist, and has been mostly overlooked by history.
But he happened to bring a 16mm camera, bought expressly for the trip. And in 2009, his grandson Glenn Kurtz found three minutes of footage, brittle with age, that pulls this tiny village back into our collective memory.
Kurtz wrote a beautiful book about his experience in 2014, called “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film.” Director Bianca Stigter found the book, and then the footage, which was added to the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was inspired by both to make a short film essay, “Three Minutes — Thirteen Minutes — Thirty Minutes,” which she has...
But he happened to bring a 16mm camera, bought expressly for the trip. And in 2009, his grandson Glenn Kurtz found three minutes of footage, brittle with age, that pulls this tiny village back into our collective memory.
Kurtz wrote a beautiful book about his experience in 2014, called “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film.” Director Bianca Stigter found the book, and then the footage, which was added to the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was inspired by both to make a short film essay, “Three Minutes — Thirteen Minutes — Thirty Minutes,” which she has...
- 8/25/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
Amblin Television is partnering with Scholastic Entertainment, the media division of Scholastic, and Marlee Matlin’s Solo One Productions to co-develop and co-produce a new live-action limited series based on the Scholastic youth memoir “Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust,” by Renee Hartman and written by Joshua M. Greene.
“Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust” tells the true story of Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable together. As Jews living in 1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta, and their parents were in immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approach their home so they could hide. But soon their parents were tragically taken away and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place to hide. Communicating...
“Signs of Survival: A Memoir of the Holocaust” tells the true story of Renee and Herta, two sisters who faced the unimaginable together. As Jews living in 1940s Czechoslovakia, Renee, Herta, and their parents were in immediate danger when the Holocaust came to their door. As the only hearing person in her family, Renee had to alert her parents and sister whenever the sound of Nazi boots approach their home so they could hide. But soon their parents were tragically taken away and the two sisters went on the run, desperate to find a safe place to hide. Communicating...
- 8/24/2022
- by Brandon Katz
- The Wrap
Preserving the remaining traces of vital cultural artifacts from bygone eras is a vital journey in not only honoring the lives of people’s ancestors, but also reminding modern society that the tragedies of the past should never be repeated. That important process is highlighted in the new documentary, ‘Three Minutes: A Lengthening,’ which creates a […]
The post Interview: Bianca Stigter and Glenn Kurtz Talk Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Interview: Bianca Stigter and Glenn Kurtz Talk Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 8/24/2022
- by Karen Benardello
- ShockYa
It takes only a few more moments than the duration in the title of Three Minutes: A Lengthening to realize what this documentary is going to be. Other voices will appear on the soundtrack, and the filmmakers will tell a story. But the visual element—the primary canvas for cinema as art—is going to focus only on these…...
- 8/16/2022
- by Jordan Hoffman
- avclub.com
It’s a quiet month for studio blockbusters. Sony has Bullet Train (August 5) and The Invitation (August 26); Universal has Beast (August 19). Not to speak on their quality—I’ve yet to see any—but those aren’t the sort of titles that make competitors scramble to avoid.
As such, the board is wide open. Hook an audience with a compelling marketing campaign and earn yourself a ticket sale. It’s no surprise the likes of A24, Bleecker Street, and IFC each have two or more titles on the calendar—they found the soft spot and they’re capitalizing.
Less is more
I never know where to put Lionsgate in the hierarchy. Probably between the top and mid-range studios mentioned above. Their latest is Fall (August 12), a film I’ve seen nothing about save Richard Rho’s poster. It might not be enough for me to go, but it did earn it a mention here.
As such, the board is wide open. Hook an audience with a compelling marketing campaign and earn yourself a ticket sale. It’s no surprise the likes of A24, Bleecker Street, and IFC each have two or more titles on the calendar—they found the soft spot and they’re capitalizing.
Less is more
I never know where to put Lionsgate in the hierarchy. Probably between the top and mid-range studios mentioned above. Their latest is Fall (August 12), a film I’ve seen nothing about save Richard Rho’s poster. It might not be enough for me to go, but it did earn it a mention here.
- 8/4/2022
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Documentary features, and really any artistic works having to do with history, often do not exist just to relay information but to make its audience not forget what it has to say. In that manner, few topics from more modern history are weightier to deal with than the Holocaust. Looking into the lives of Jewish citizens in a Polish village at the start of World War II, and stretching just three minutes of these people to feature length, “Three Minutes: A Lengthening” offers a wholly unique look at just a small section of people who would face the gravest of inhumanity.
Continue reading ‘Three Minutes: A Lengthening’ Trailer: Helena Bonham Carter Narrates A Haunting Holocaust Documentary at The Playlist.
Continue reading ‘Three Minutes: A Lengthening’ Trailer: Helena Bonham Carter Narrates A Haunting Holocaust Documentary at The Playlist.
- 7/28/2022
- by Noah Thompson
- The Playlist
Eva Vitija’s documentary explores the life of crime novelist Patricia Highsmith.
Austrian documentary specialist Autlook has sold Eva Vitija’s Loving Highsmith, about crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, to multiple territories.
Deals confirmed are to FilmIn (Spain), Edge Entertainment, Madman and Iwonder (Italy).
Filmcoopi is handling the Swiss release, Salzgeber will release in Germany and Polyfilm in Austria, North American rights are under negotiation.
The feature documentary tells Highsmith’s life story using material from family, friends and her recently published private diaries. These testimonies paint a picture of a troubled love life and a lifelong search for identity.
As...
Austrian documentary specialist Autlook has sold Eva Vitija’s Loving Highsmith, about crime novelist Patricia Highsmith, to multiple territories.
Deals confirmed are to FilmIn (Spain), Edge Entertainment, Madman and Iwonder (Italy).
Filmcoopi is handling the Swiss release, Salzgeber will release in Germany and Polyfilm in Austria, North American rights are under negotiation.
The feature documentary tells Highsmith’s life story using material from family, friends and her recently published private diaries. These testimonies paint a picture of a troubled love life and a lifelong search for identity.
As...
- 5/18/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
The film has sold to UK (Curzon) and Australia (Madman Entertainment).
Austrian documentary sales specialist Autlook Filmsales has recorded a string of key deals on Bianca Stigter’s Holocaust documentary Three Minutes - A Lengthening.
The film has sold to UK (Curzon), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Spain and Portugal (FilmIn), Scandinavia and Baltics (NonStop), Poland (Against Gravity), Hong Kong (Pccw) and Former Yugoslavia (Discovery Film).
Neon’s boutique label Super Ltd will distribute to North America later this autumn. Japanese and German buyers are also reportedly circling the film.
From a three-minute home film from 1939, the director recreates the story of...
Austrian documentary sales specialist Autlook Filmsales has recorded a string of key deals on Bianca Stigter’s Holocaust documentary Three Minutes - A Lengthening.
The film has sold to UK (Curzon), Australia (Madman Entertainment), Spain and Portugal (FilmIn), Scandinavia and Baltics (NonStop), Poland (Against Gravity), Hong Kong (Pccw) and Former Yugoslavia (Discovery Film).
Neon’s boutique label Super Ltd will distribute to North America later this autumn. Japanese and German buyers are also reportedly circling the film.
From a three-minute home film from 1939, the director recreates the story of...
- 5/9/2022
- by Geoffrey Macnab
- ScreenDaily
Bianca Stigter: 'There's knowledge that we have and that they don't have puts these images on a lot of almost unbearable pressure' Photo: Image courtesy of Family Affair Films, © US Holocaust Memorial Museum Historian, critic, journalist and producer Bianca Stigter turns her hand to documentary in Three Minutes: A Lengthening. The film takes a rare piece of, mostly colour, footage shot in the Polish town of Nasielsk in 1938 – a community which included 3000 Jewish residents, all but 100 of whom would be murdered just years later in the Holocaust. Stigter’s essay film, narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, plays the film back and forth, zooming in on detail and biography, offering a tribute to the townsfolk, while also providing a rumination on the importance of historical footage like this to the present day. I caught up with Stigter shortly after the film screened at Sundance to chat to her about it.
- 2/6/2022
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
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