1940: Taking over French Cinema (2019)

1940: Taking over French Cinema

2019

Documentary History TV Movie

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.

Credits

Director

Pierre-Henri Gibert

Cast

Claude Heymann as Self (archive footage)

Henri Calef as Self (archive footage)

Henri-Georges Clouzot as Self (archive footage)

Jean Dréville as Self (archive footage)

Jean-Paul Le Chanois as Self (archive footage)

Louis-Émile Galey as Self (archive footage)

Marcel Carné as Self (archive footage)

Michel Duran as Self (archive footage)