“Bella Ciao!” Program 5 – remembering is resisting

A journal for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings. United Kingdom, 1945. 39′

A child is born when the war is ending: what Europe and what world will he see? What future did his contemporaries prepare for him?

A Diary For Timothy is a touching but resolutely unsentimental portrait of the battle-weary Home Front in 1944-45. It casts a sensitive gaze on the lives of ordinary people, while celebrating their dignity and determination. Timothy, born on the fifth anniversary of the start of World War II, represents the future, giving hope to those who have recently been at war. They all “fight” for Timothy, that is, for his future.

Humphrey Jennings (1907-1950) was a British documentary filmmaker, editor, poet, photographer, literary critic, set designer and painter. Director of the famous GPO film unit, his films changed the face of modern British documentary filmmaking.

following

A strange victory

Leo Hurwitz. United States of America, 1948. 64′

A film that poses a very topical question: did the defeat of Nazism really wipe out racist ideology in the United States and Europe?

Strange Victory is the first major American anti-racist documentary film. In the midst of the high hopes of the postwar economic boom, Leo Hurwitz, as a good political provocateur, highlights the contradictions between the ideals of the Allied victory against Nazism and the lingering aspects of fascism in American society. Hurwitz asks a question that is still absolutely and terribly relevant today, “Why are the ide of the losers still alive in the land of the winners?”

Leo Hurwitz (1909-1991) was a prominent American filmmaker and activist. During a career spanning nearly seven decades, he has made more than 40 films and played a major role in both American film and television. In the 1950s he was a victim of McCarthyism.