Steve McQueen’s Occupied City

“CRITIC’S PICK” – N.Y. Times
“QUIETLY STAGGERING. A masterful panorama of WWII-era Amsterdam. McQueen and Stigter haven’t just excavated some not-so-ancient history; they’ve also made a haunting, magisterial tribute to a city they clearly love.”– Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

The past collides with our precarious present in Steve McQueen’s bravura 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.

Directed by Steve McQueen. Texts Written by Steve McQueen & Bianca Stigter. Informed by the Book by Bianca Stigter. UK 2023. In English. TRT = 262 min. (including 15-min. intermission).