“Film records the profound suffering that war brings to mankind.” That is how the Beijing International Film Festival explained a focus it has unveiled on war and peace in a special “Film and Peace” program that it is featuring during its 15th edition starting on Friday.
It will showcase “12 masterpieces” depicting “the tragedy of war” on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II this year to “immerse ourselves in history,” organizers said. “Filmmakers at home and abroad use light and shadow to remember the cruelty and endless pain of war and use memory, emotion and shocking reality to preserve recollection and sound the alarm for today.”
Among the movies screening at the Chinese fest will be the winner of the first-ever Cannes Film Festival in 1946, The Last Chance, a 1945 movie directed by Austrian-Swiss filmmaker Leopold Lindtberg. Also featured are such classics as Claude Lanzmann’s Shoa, Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, and Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar winner The Zone of Interest.
Many of the movies presented in the section are newly restored 4K versions, according to the film festival, which runs April 18-26.
Below is a look at the lineup for the Beijing “Film and Peace” lineup.
The Last Chance, Leopold Lindtberg, 1945
“The film tells the story of two British and American prisoners of war escaping from a concentration camp and leading refugees out of the clutches of the Nazis.”
Shoa, Claude Lanzmann, 1985
The legendary epic nine-hour Holocaust documentary features interviews with survivors, witnesses and perpetrators.
All I Had Was Nothingness, Guillaume Ribot, 2025
The making of Shoa and the toll it took on Lanzmann get the spotlight as Ribot revisits outtakes from the Holocaust doc.
The Burmese Harp, Kon Ichikawa, 1956
This “rare masterpiece among Japanese anti-war films,” as the Beijing fest calls it, tells the story of Japanese soldiers who fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II.
Wings, Larisa Shepitko, 1966
“This film focuses on the post-war life of retired female pilots, showing the audience the long aftershocks left in the hearts of those who experienced the war,” the Beijing fest highlights in its synopsis.
Cross of Iron, Sam Peckinpah, 1977
James Coburn, Maximilian Schell, James Mason and David Warne star in the film which focuses on the class conflict between an aristocratic Prussian officer and a cynical, battle-hardened infantry officer.
The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On, Kazuo Hara, 1987
The doc centers on a 62-year-old veteran of Japan’s WWII campaign in New Guinea who searches for those responsible for the unexplained deaths of two soldiers in his unit.
The Thin Red Line, Terrence Malick, 1998
The Hollywood classic starring the likes of Sean Penn, Adrien Brody, Jim Caviezel, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, John C. Reilly, and John Travolta, follows a group of soldiers in a battle at the Guadalcanal that is a fight for survival.
Downfall, Oliver Hirschbiegel, 2004
Bruno Ganz portrays Adolf Hitler in this classic about the final days in the Nazi leadership bunker. It will be screened in Beijing in a restored 4K version.
Above the Drowning Sea, René Balcer and Nicola Zavaglia, 2017
On the eve of World War II, tens of thousands of Jewish refugees were trapped in Nazi-controlled Vienna. This documentary tells the story of their dramatic escape to Shanghai.
The Zone of Interest, Jonathan Glazer, 2023
Described by Beijing as a “highly experimental masterpiece” and “reflection on war,” the drama about Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family with Christian Friedel and Sandra Hüller, won the best international feature film Oscar.
The Propagandist, Luuk Bouwman, 2024
Using previously unpublished interviews, family and propaganda films, this doc charts the rise and fall of Dutch filmmaker Jan Teunissen who became the head of the Dutch film department and key Nazi propagandist.