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Critical Passion studies the relationship between critics and authors in the history of Italian cinema in relation to the history of the National Union of Italian Film Critics (SNCCI), since its founding act in 1971. It is a non-secondary path in Italian cultural history, traced thanks to the interventions of prestigious witnesses and the editing of archive material, from the 1960s to the advent of the web and social networks and the current explosion of the audiovisual sector, which questions the very definition and boundaries of cinema.
Status
Released
Original Language
IT

When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".

A documentary examining the decade of the 1970s as a turning point in American cinema. Some of today's best filmmakers interview the influential directors of that time.