1940: Taking over French Cinema
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.
- Genre: Documentary, History, TV Movie
- Studio: Talweg Production, France Télévisions, Histoire TV
- Keyword: france, based on novel or book, world war ii, german occupation, 1940s, occupied france (1940-44), antisemitism, film industry, documentary film, historical documentary
- Cast: Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain, Louis-Émile Galey, Claude Heymann, Jean Dréville, Marcel Carné, Raoul Ploquin
