Canada Vignettes: Wop May

Grand Illusion

June 1937 •French

A group of French soldiers, including the patrician Captain de Boeldieu and the working-class Lieutenant Maréchal, grapple with their own class differences after being captured and held in a World War I German prison camp. When the men are transferred to a high-security fortress, they must concoct a plan to escape beneath the watchful eye of aristocratic German officer von Rauffenstein, who has formed an unexpected bond with de Boeldieu.

Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka – Švejkova budějovická anabase

September 1956 •Czech

Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka – Z Hatvanu na hranice Haliče

July 1954 •Czech

Sarajevo

April 2014 •German

The events in Sarajevo in June 1914 are the backdrop for a thriller directed by Andreas Prochaska and written by Martin Ambrosch, focusing on the examining magistrate Dr. Leo Pfeffer (Florian Teichtmeister) investigating the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Trying to do his job in a time of lawlessness and violence, intrigues and betrayal, Leo struggles to maintain his integrity and save his love, Marija, and her father, prominent Serbian merchant. But the events of Sarajevo have set into motion an inescapable course of events that will escalate to become … the Great War.

Asunder

July 2016 •English

Esther Johnson’s film uses local archive footage to convey the story of Sunderland's involvement in the First World War, from the men who fought in the fields to those who stayed behind to work in the region’s shipyards and munitions factories.

Queen Marie of Romania

November 2019 •Romanian

Devastated by the First World War and plunged into political controversy, Romania's every hope accompanies its Queen on her mission to Paris, to lobby for its great unification's international recognition at the 1919 Peace Talks.

Three Days in August 1914

January 2013 •French

Documentary on the atrocities the germans committed at the start of WW I in Dinant.

1917, The Train from Hell

November 2019 •French

1917, The Train from Hell is an historical documentary about a train accident during WW1.

Flyboys

September 2006 •English

The adventures of the Lafayette Escadrille, young Americans who volunteered for the French military before the U.S. entered World War I, and became the country's first fighter pilots.

The Red Baron

March 2008 •German

Richthofen goes off to war like thousands of other men. As fighter pilots, they become cult heroes for the soldiers on the battlefields. Marked by sportsmanlike conduct, technical exactitude and knightly propriety, they have their own code of honour. Before long he begins to understand that his hero status is deceptive. His love for Kate, a nurse, opens his eyes to the brutality of war.

The Green Room

April 1978 •French

A widower maintains a memorial room filled with his late wife's belongings. When fire destroys it, he transforms a chapel into a new shrine to preserve her memory.

The Great War

December 2019 •English

In November of 1918 as World War I was ending, a unit of American soldiers goes behind enemy lines to find a lost platoon of African American soldiers.

The Cardinal

December 1963 •English

A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.

Osudy dobrého vojáka Švejka – Švejkovy nehody ve vlaku

January 1955 •Czech

Noble Sissle's Syncopated Ragtime

October 2018 •English

Combining footage unseen since WWI with original scores from the era, this film tells the story of Noble Sissle's incredible journey that spans "The Harlem Hellfighters" of World War I, Broadway Theatre, the Civil Rights movement, and decades of Black cultural development.

Bluebeard

January 1963 •French

Paris, France, during the First World War. While thousands of soldiers die every day on the battlefields, Henri Landru, a seemingly respectable furniture dealer, married and father of four children, relentlessly feeds his own sinister factory of death.

Fort Saganne

May 1984 •French

In 1911, a willful and determined man from peasant stock named Charles Saganne enlists in the military and is assigned to the Sahara Desert under the aristocratic Colonel Dubreuilh.

Fighting Fred Funston

April 2017 •English

On April 18th, 1906, San Francisco witnessed its most devastating natural disaster – an earthquake that initiated a city-wide fire. The commanding officer of the U.S. Army base at the Presidio, Fred Funston, gathered citizens to fight the fire, patrol the streets, and rebuild the city – all without authorization.

Legends of the Sky: The Liberty Plane

November 2022 •English

When the United States entered World War I, its Army Air Service lacked a combat-ready aircraft – a liability that prompted a search to find an aircraft suitable for production at home and combat operations abroad. This documentary from Bowling Green filmmakers tells the story behind the single-engine DH-4 plane dubbed The Liberty Plane.

The Lost Battalion

December 2001 •English

Fact-based war drama about an American battalion of over 500 men which gets trapped behind enemy lines in the Argonne Forest in October 1918 France during the closing weeks of World War I.