OCCUPIED CITY
Section: Special Screenings
Director: Steve McQueen
Screenwriter: Bianca Stigter — adapted from her book Atlas of an Occupied City, Amsterdam 1940-1945
Logline: The past collides with our precarious present in Steve McQueen’s documentary Occupied City, informed by the book Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945) written by Bianca Stigter. McQueen creates two interlocking portraits: a door-to-door excavation of the Nazi occupation that still haunts his adopted city, and a vivid journey through the last years of pandemic and protest. What emerges is both devastating and life-affirming, an expansive meditation on memory, time, and where we’re headed.
Panelists: McQueen and Stigter.
Sales Agent: A24
Premiered: Wednesday 17, Debussy Theatre
Key Quote: Speaking about the film’s four-hour run time, McQueen said: “We filmed 36 hours of material. We filmed everything in the book, 36 hours and I cut it down to just under four and a half hours for the feature film. At another point, I will hopefully present it in another context.”
McQueen added: “Length is about what you write and what’s necessary. You had to have this elongation because it was about the magnitude of what was going on. It needed that understanding and acknowledgment.”
The 2023 Cannes Film Festival runs May 16 — May 27. Follow Deadline’s complete coverage of the deals and doings on the Croisette here.
