Ortona 1943: A Bloody Christmas Backdrop Blur
Ortona 1943: A Bloody Christmas Poster
NR 0h 52m

Ortona 1943: A Bloody Christmas

It was one of the bloodiest and most mysterious battles of the Second World War in Italy. In Ortona, a small seaside town in the Abruzzo region, Germans and Canadians literally fought street by street, house by house, even room by room. Why did everyone want to conquer Ortona in December 1943? What was so important about it? Why was it forgotten so quickly afterwards? And what secret does Ortona hide until this day? Amazing library footage, never before heard eyewitness accounts, documents that have remained secret until now, recently found German photographs and moving re-enactments help us to relive not only the political and military climate of the time, but take us back to the narrow alleys of the time, standing side-by-side with the soldiers to discover the embarrassing truth that has remained hidden for over half a century.

Top Cast

  • Dean Douglas

    Dean Douglas

    Narrator

Overview

It was one of the bloodiest and most mysterious battles of the Second World War in Italy. In Ortona, a small seaside town in the Abruzzo region, Germans and Canadians literally fought street by street, house by house, even room by room. Why did everyone want to conquer Ortona in December 1943? What was so important about it? Why was it forgotten so quickly afterwards? And what secret does Ortona hide until this day? Amazing library footage, never before heard eyewitness accounts, documents that have remained secret until now, recently found German photographs and moving re-enactments help us to relive not only the political and military climate of the time, but take us back to the narrow alleys of the time, standing side-by-side with the soldiers to discover the embarrassing truth that has remained hidden for over half a century.

Rating

NR / 10
0 Reviews
0 Popular

Trailers & Clips

Recommendations

For Sama

A love letter from a young mother to her daughter, the film tells the story of Waad al-Kateab’s life through five years of the uprising in Aleppo, Syria as she falls in love, gets married and gives birth to Sama, all while cataclysmic conflict rises around her. Her camera captures incredible stories of loss, laughter and survival as Waad wrestles with an impossible choice– whether or not to flee the city to protect her daughter’s life, when leaving means abandoning the struggle for freedom for which she has already sacrificed so much.

For Sama

8.3 2019
The War on Democracy

Set both in Latin America and the United States, the film explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger says that the film "...tells a universal story... analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".

The War on Democracy

7.5 2007