“Our life was fine before the war. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t rich or anything. But we had
our moments of joy, celebration and love. And then came Nazism...”
- Michalis Fanourakis, age 95, survivor of the Battle of Crete.
On the morning of May 20 th 1941, the sky over the airport of Maleme at Chania filled with aircraft carrying thousands of troops, in an impressive attempt to take over Crete by air. It was a blatant show of force by Nazi’s elite paratrooper unit – but it would be their last. In the 10 days that followed, meagre Greek and allied forces fought gallantly, assisted by civilians who rushed to the front line with whatever weapon they could muster. Together they managed to stave off the attack and cause irreparable damage to Hitler’s forces and prestige.
In this new documentary feature, we present the events through the eyes of the people that
experienced them firsthand, and attempt to interpret them with the help of reputable scholars and researchers who have dedicated their work on this particular moment of WWII history. We outsource photographic evidence, audio excerpts, artefacts and a wealth of visual archive materials to piece together the facts, and use artfully crafted animation and graphics to respectfully re-enact moments that have been left out from official records, but remain
persistently present in human memory.
Direction & cinematography: Victoria Vellopoulou
Script: Ioanna Bratsiakou
Research: Vicky Arvelaki, Marilia Stavridou, Astrid Blümlein
DoP: Kostis Nikolopoulos
Editors: Panos Polyzos, Manolis Kolokotronis
Motion Graphics/VFX: Alexis Kouvaritakis, Manolis Kolokotronis
Original Score: Konstantinos Borek
Line Producer: Dimitris Xenakis
Producer: Ioanna Davi