1940: Taking over French Cinema

1940: Taking over French Cinema (2019) blends Documentary, History, and TV Movie elements. Top cast includes Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain, Louis-Émile Galey, and Claude Heymann. The plot follows a central conflict that grows in scope as the film progresses.

Actor: Sarah-Jane Sauvegrain

Paris, 1940. German occupation forces create a new film production company, Continental, and put Alfred Greven – producer, cinephile, and opportunistic businessman – in charge. During the occupation, under Joseph Goebbels’s orders, Greven hires the best artists and technicians of French cinema to produce successful, highly entertaining films, which are also strategically devoid of propaganda. Simultaneously, he takes advantage of the confiscation of Jewish property to purchase film theaters, studios and laboratories, in order to control the whole production line. His goal: to create a European Hollywood. Among the thirty feature films thus produced under the auspices of Continental, several are, to this day, considered classics of French cinema.