Film · 2019 · 55m

1940: Taking over French Cinema

Name: 1940: Taking over French Cinema
Genre: Documentary, History
Released: 2019-05-19
Duration: 55 min
Cast: Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain, Louis-Émile Galey, Claude Heymann, Jean Dréville, Marcel Carné

1940, main basse sur le cinéma français

Documentary History

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Synopsis

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.