A pair of trailers for two World War II films have arrived, the first is actually a three-part miniseries titled Generation War, which has been described as “Germany’s ‘Band of Brothers'” and will be released theatrically by Music Box Films on January 15, though only at New York’s IFC Center and I doubt it will be expanding much further.
Set in Berlin 1941, the miniseries centers on five friends eager to become heroes in the German army only to later find their lives irrevocably damaged after years of bloodshed. Directed by Philipp Kadelbach, the film stars Volker Bruch, Tom Schilling, Katharina Schuttler, Ludwig Trepte and Miriam Stein.
Here’s the trailer.
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Next we have Stalingrad from director Fedor Bondarchuk. The film is a 3D action film that recently stormed the Chinese box office to the tune of $8.3 million during its opening weekend and has been submitted by Russia as their official entry into the 2014 Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Feature (full list here).
Telling of the clash between Hitler and Stalin, the film has proved controversial in Russia where it has already tallied more than $47 million as it’s deemed too soft in its portrayal of German soldiers. Considering the backdrop to the bloody affair is the relationship formed between Thomas Kretschmann as a German officer and a Soviet woman (Yanina Studilina) I can see where there may be some outcry, but just watching this trailer it’s quite obvious it’s a film that wasn’t necessarily going for authenticity as much as it was for epic spectacle.
Apparently screenwriter Ilya Tilkin based the screenplay on diaries of the participants of the Battle of Stalingrad and museum archives, documents and recorded stories of its participants.
The film doesn’t yet have a domestic distributor, but you can check out a trailer and a couple posters below.
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