European Film Salons: Portraying Perpetrators

3 March 2014
Starting this academic year, the European Institute will be hosting a regular Film Salon. During these events, we will screen films produced in and with diverse topics of wider European relevance, in all genres. All screenings are free and will be followed by discussion.

The first season in our Salon Series will be dedicated to films in documentary and experimental, semi-documentary formats engaging with the legacy of war. More concretely, the selected films focus not on victims but on perpetrators: on those who did not suffer but commit crimes during war and dictatorship, and the ways both their families and society at large are coming to terms with these acts across the generations.

Harlan: In the Shadow of Jew Suss
(Germany, 2008)
Veit Harlan was one of Nazi Germany's most notorious filmmakers. This documentary is an eye-opening examination of World War II film history as well as the story of a German family from the Third Reich to the present; one that is marked by reckoning, denial and liberation.
German with English subtitles

• Introduction to "Harlan" by Prof. Erica Carter (KCL)
• PDF flyer

For info, please contact Julia Wagner

24 March Film: The passenger
(Poland, 1963)
The last film of Andrzej Munk, who died in a crash during the filming. A German woman on a ship coming back to Europe notices a face of another woman which brings recollections from the past. She tells her husband that she has been an overseer in Auschwitz during the war, but she has actually saved a woman's life. Her vision is shown and then the actual events.
Polish with English subtitles

12 May Film: "2 or 3 things"
(Germany, 2005)
German filmmaker Malte Ludin explores the questionable legacy of his father, executed Plenipotentiary Nazi Party Minister Hanns Ludin, in this documentary that delves into a dark family history while exploring just how stories are passed down through the generations. It's been 60 years since the end of World War II, and though the story of Hanns Ludin is now a matter of public record, his family continues to whitewash their history and deny the brutal facts.
German with English subtitles

6 June Film: The Act of Killing
(Denmark, Britain, Norway, 2012)
In this chilling and inventive documentary, executive produced by Werner Herzog, Errol Morris and André Singer, the unrepentant former members of Indonesian death squads are challenged to re-enact some of their many murders in the style of the American movies they love.

16 June Film: I was a Slave Labourer
(UK, 1999)
Introduced by Luke Holland (director)
Over a three-year period, Luke Holland documented the activities of Buna/Monowitz survivor Rudy Kennedy as he visits international conferences and endeavors to obtain compensation for former slave labourers from German companies like BASF and VW.