OCCUPIED CITY

DOCUMENTARY | ENGLISH, Dutch | 266 min

Where do the memories of a city go? From Oscar- and BAFTA-winning filmmaker and Turner Prize-winning visual artist Steve McQueen, comes this mesmerising and monumental excavation of how the past haunts our precarious present: mirroring it and warning us in plain sight.

Informed by the book Atlas of an Occupied City: Amsterdam 1940-1945 written by Bianca Stigter, the documentary creates two interlocking portraits. One shows the city’s devastating Nazi occupation through door-to-door accounts – tales of Jewish persecution, of resistance, collaboration, valour, and denial. The other is a vivid journey through the last years of pandemic and protest. The combination has a transformative effect with which McQueen opens up a poetic, dreamlike space where unthinkable history and hope for a new future co-exist.

The film’s runtime includes a 15-minute intermission.

DIRECTOR Steve McQueen
COUNTRY OF PRODUCTION United Kingdom, Netherlands, United States

“monumental film … moving … asks hard questions about the gulf between past and present”
★★★★★

— Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“HYPnotic … horrific … actively un-tear-jerking .. glowing with promise and life”
★★★★

— Robbie Collin, The Telegraph

“Startling and formally rigorous” 

— Critic’s Pick, Manohlo Dargis, The New York Times

“Masterful … quietly staggering” 

— Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times

FESTIVALS + AWARDS

Cannes Film Festival
Special Screening

BFI London Film Festival

Special Presentation

New York Film Festival
Official Selection

Telluride Film Festival
Official Selection

British Independent Film Awards
Nominee: Best Feature Documentary

2023 International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam
Official Selection, Signed