De Bezette Stad

October 2019 saw the publication of Atlas van een Bezette Stad - Amsterdam 1940-1945 (Atlas of an Occupied City - Amsterdam 1940-1945) by writer and NRC editor Bianca Stigter, a monumental work in which Stigter reveals in great detail the history of the occupation of Amsterdam during WWII. Where did NSB members live, where were people in hiding, where did the Jews live who would later be deported, where was the resistance active, and who tried to break it? Street by street, house by house, she reveals what went on behind the doors; she has created a 'time machine of paper'.

As monumental as the book is the film her life partner Steve McQueen has now made. The man, who previously won an Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, not only shows what traces the Nazi past has left in today's Amsterdam, he also draws the past into the present, into the years of the corona pandemic. The result is a story as shattering as it is hopeful, a meditation on memory and time. With a voice-over by Carice van Houten.

Due to the length of this film, there will be an intermission.