Hindenburg (2011)

Loosely based on history, Hindenburg previously aired on German television in 2 parts and soon to be released on DVD.

"Discover the shocking secret behind one of the greatest disasters of the 20th century in this powerful, exhilarating, world war two thriller. When a chance encounter throws a young engineer into the depths of a deadly plot he begins a race against time to uncover a secret that could throw the world into shock. But when money, politics and the girl he loves all enter the picture too, the game starts to get even more complicated...

What ensues will test his strength, resolve and bravery to the limits in a white-knuckle roller-coaster of epic proportions. "

Featuring: Maximilian Simonischek, Lauren Lee Smith, Stacy Keach and Greta Scacchi

Catherine Oxenberg on Duchess of Cambridge, and a new historical drama

Stumbled on this video of Catherine Oxenberg talking about what life might be like for the newest member of Britain's royal family - Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. I am a bit worried about how all this publicity will wear on Kate and William after a while and sincerely hope that the British press retract their infamous claws and allow the royal couple to have some semblance of a normal life! I got curious about what film projects Oxenberg has been doing and discovered that she will be portraying her grandmother H.R.H. Princess Olga of Greece and Denmark in a movie that she's co-written and which is being produced by her parents Howard Oxenberg and Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia. [Details below video]

Prince Charles' Cousin Talks Royal Life

Prince Paul Royal Exile is a historical drama about "the true story of the private conversation between H.R.H Prince Paul of Yugoslavia and Hitler to negotiate a none aggression treaty to save Yugoslavia from certain annihilation."

Synopsis: "Royal Exile is a historical drama/political thriller based on the life of His Royal Highness Prince Paul of Yugoslavia at the time of WW2. It is an intimate, behind the scenes glimpse of the interaction between members of the Royal houses of Europe as they dealt with the threat of impending war, the tragic events that led up to the betrayal of Prince Paul and the subsequent destruction of Yugoslavia.
Prince Paul became Regent after the brutal assassination of his cousin King Alexander in 1934. As reigning monarch, he healed the internal rifts of his country and forged the first functioning democratic government. When Germany declared war against Poland, Paul was thrust into the unenviable role of protecting his country on all sides from the threat of both Fascist and Communist invasions. He courageously stood up to Hitler and skillfully negotiated peace and autonomy for his country while the rest of the Balkans fell to the Nazis.
Sadly, it was his desire for peace that perpetuated his downfall. Churchill decided that Yugoslavia should declare war on Germany, unprovoked. When the Allies were unable to send military assistance, Paul refused to sacrifice his people. The British secretly funded a coup d’etat which resulted in his abdication and resulting exile. Hitler immediately launched “Operation Punishment” and within a week Yugoslavia lay in ruins, over a million Yugoslavs eventually lost their lives.
Prince Paul and his family were sent to Kenya for the remainder of the war where they lived under British house arrest. Paul spent the rest of his life labelled a traitor and a Nazi sympathizer. Now, 70 years later, he is finally being recognized as a peacemaker and a visionary and has been vindicated as a national hero."

[IMDb mentions that it's filming in Serbia, not sure of release date]

Official site for Prince Paul Royal Exile

Video: Costume Design for Dolley Madison

Fans of period costume, check out this video! We get a glimpse behind the scenes with costume designer Candice Donnelly showing some of the gorgeous historical gowns created for Dolley Madison, America's 'first' First Lady, which previously aired on PBS' American Experience in 2010.

MTA - Just finished watching the broadcast of Dolley Madison which I had someone record for me on VHS last year! I found it thoroughly engaging and loved learning about this impressive woman I knew nothing of, and more of that time in American history since it was never part of my Canadian curriculum.

Features Eve Best in the role of Dolley Madison.
She also portrayed Wallis Simpson in The King's Speech.

Exhibit of Dolley's costumes
June 15, 2011 - March 31, 2012
James Madison's Montpelier, Virginia

The Royal Diaries (DVD)

Three of the titles from Scholastic's series of Royal Diaries
have been adapted for film (each story is 26 minutes):

Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile, Egypt, 57 B.C. (written by Carolyn Meyer)
Isabel: Jewel of Castilla, Spain, 1466 (written by Kristiana Gregory )
Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, England, 1544 (written by Kathryn Lasky)

I enjoyed reading some of the Scholastic diaries with my daughter so pleased to see that they have been adapted for young girls to get a taste of history!

Released in 2008

Scholastic (books)
Amazon (dvd)

Thanks to xHistoryGirl23x for uploading these videos!

Habermann (2010)

War is over. Vengeance has begun.

"We are determined to get rid of these Germans forever..."
Edvard Beneš, President of Czechoslovakia

"You will have no difficulties from our side.
Go right on and prepare it."
Franklin D. Roosevelt, U.S. President

German mill owner spends WWII trying to save his wife, daughter and Czech workers from Nazi terror, but faces his own tragic end in an unexpected way. Based on true events surrounding the expulsion of Sudeten Germans from Czechoslovakia in 1945.

"The events happened more than sixty years ago, but their effects can be felt even today. If we want to understand the present, we have to know what happened in the past. The film starts with the expulsion: we know from the start how this story will end – there is no escape. Then we are shown the events that led up to it. The story of HABERMANN ends after the "expulsion" of the Germans from the Sudetenland area bordering Germany and Czechoslovakia in 1945, and remains today one of the darkest chapters in the relationship between Germans and Czechs. The atrocities perpetrated in the course of the expulsion are a taboo to his date. Many Czechs do not want to be reminded of it, many Germans insist that they have been wronged bitterly at the time and that nobody has ever had to pay for this. There is now a new young generation that wants information about the past." - director Juraj Herz
[German with English subtitles]

Official site

Berlin 36 (2009)

"A remarkable true story of the 1936 Berlin Olympics and the strange machinations of the Nazi propaganda machine inspired this historical drama. Adolf Hitler and his associates saw the 1936 Olympics as an ideal opportunity to show the superiority of the fascist way of life to the world, but their plans hit a snag when the American Olympic team announced they would boycott the games unless the German team allowed Jewish athletes to participate. Much of the controversy hinged on Gretel Bergmann (Karoline Herfurth), a world-class high jumper who seemed a sure bet to make the German team except for the fact she was a Jew. German sports minister Hans von Tschamner und Osten (Thomas Thieme) and his assistant Karl Ritter von Halt (Johann von Buelow) quickly hatched a plan to placate both sides -- they would invite Bergmann to participate in a qualifying meet, but match her against a gentile athlete certain to beat her. Finding a female who could outjump Bergmann was a formidable task, and the Jewish champion soon found herself up against a little known competitor, Marie Ketteler, who hid a secret from the world -- Marie was actually a man (played bySebastian Urzendowsky). As fate would have it, both Bergmann and Ketteler made the team and struck up a friendship, but one that would soon be compromised by Ketteler's deeper feelings. And while Ketteler was in fact a man, he had been living in sexual limbo much of his life, having been raised as a girl by his overbearing mother (Marita Breuer), which only added to his dilemma." [Mark Deming, Fandango]

Henry of Navarre (2010) - trailer

Based on the popular novel Young Henry of Navarre by Heinrich Mann, the film is a biopic of Henry IV of France who reigned from 1589-1610. It played at film festivals last year and is being released on DVD (German with English subtitles).

[Update regarding content: this drama contains scenes with graphic violence, nudity and sex]

Synopsis: "The remarkable life of one of France's most influential leaders is dramatized in this stylish historical drama. In 16th Century France, political power walks hand in hand with religion as the Royal Family are devout Catholics and Huguenots (early Protestants) are treated as second-class citizens. Henry (Julien Boisselier) is a Huguenot military leader who has become a hero in Navarre, a territory in Southwest France, and as Nostradamus (Fritz Marquardt) predicts a remarkable future for him, he is introduced to Catherine de' Medici (Hannelore Hoger), the Catholic queen of France. Catherine clearly holds power over feeble-minded King Charles IX (Ulrich Noethen), and she is keen on holding on to her position by seeing her sons go on to rule the nation. But as the Huguenots become restless and Henry looks to be the potential leader of a revolt, Catherine arranges a marriage between Henry and her daughter Margot (Armelle Deutsch), certain the alliance will stop the budding conflict. But the nuptials only leads to the infamous St. Bartholomew's Day massacre as Catholics attack Huguenots, leading to the death of thirty thousand people. Henry is captured by the Queen's army but escapes to lead the Huguenots in a war against the throne; while Henry is forced to resort to violent means, his goal is to end the fighting by establishing religious freedom and ending faith-based rule in France. Henri 4 (aka Henry of Navarre) was originally produced as a mini-series for European television; it was also edited into a theatrical feature, and this version was an official selection at the 2010 Berlin International Film Festival." [from Fandango]

IMDb

Four Kings (2012)

Brendan Fraser is set to star as "Colonel Lord Francis Nicholson, a vastly wealthy Brit who self-finances the war in the hope of creating a utopian society in what is now Canada."

Written and directed by Damian Lee of Alchemist Entertainment.

Four Kings is set against the Seven Years' War - French and Indian War (1754-1763) that essentially divided North America.

Executive produced by Todd Moyer and James Holt, the film is produced by Jeff Sackman (American Psycho) from a project developed by Telefilm Canada.

Source: Comingsoon.net

Begins production in Toronto this August.

Painting: The Death of General Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham
Quebec in 1759, part of the Seven Years' War.

Four Kings makes me recall the period drama series Marguerite Volant
which takes place after the war has ended in 1763.
(about a French family on a seigneurie after the defeat by the British)

The Edwardian Country House

"For three months, nineteen brave volunteers immerse themselves in an Edwardian world of social inequality and rigid class distinctions in a grand country house..."

The Edwardian Country House (titled Manor House by PBS) is one of the Historical Reality Series of shows that explores life from an earlier time.
This originally aired back in 2002 (UK) and on PBS and TVO a year later.

PBS: extra features and information

Here are episode synopses from Channel 4:
Episode 1 | Upstairs, Downstairs
Day one and 13 of the volunteers arrive. To help them through the three months ahead they have a rule book outlining their roles and positions in the rigid upstairs-downstairs hierarchy.

A Hampshire family has been chosen to live as the masters of the house. The nine-year-old son is especially pleased to find he has people to order about. However not everyone is satisfied. A week in, there is already a situation vacant in the house.

Episode 2 | Up to Scratch
At a time when industrial and commercial wealth was only just being accepted into the ranks of high society, it was crucial for a nouveau riche family like the Olliff-Coopers to hold and improve their position at the top. In episode two Sir John and Lady Olliff-Cooper set about using their new assets, including their country house, their male servants and their French chef, to maximum affect in that most powerful social weapon - the dinner party.

The family is settling in to their new luxurious lifestyle. Lady Olliff-Cooper feels like a child again. Mister Jonathan and Master Guy are learning to talk to people 50 years their senior while 'looking down their noses' and Sir John is wishing modern society was a little more like it is at Manderston.

Downstairs there is some jostling for position going on. There is a new scullery maid - Kelly Squire and she is not enjoying the job much more than her predecessor.

Episode 3 | The Servants' Revolt
The atmosphere in the Edwardian Country House is tense as our 19 volunteers continue to come to terms with their new Edwardian lives.

Upstairs plans are afoot to host a fund-raising fête in the gardens to help the local hospital. But the benevolent masters of Manderston may be missing hardships closer to home.

Amongst the staff there are serious complaints about working hours and living conditions. Without time off, they feel they cannot go on. The chef takes matters into his own hands and, breaking all the rules, he takes the two ladies of the house on a tour of conditions downstairs. The mistress of the house takes immediate action. Two new maids are hired, but will it be enough to curb the swell of working class militancy below stairs?

Episode 4 | Cold Comfort
Hunting, shooting and fishing were the mainstay of country house life and the master has no desire to duck out of these Edwardian activities. While the men get back to nature, the women at home begin to question their roles in Edwardian society. Sexual restrictions particularly affect Avril, the unmarried sister of Lady Olliff-Cooper, who has to bear the discomforts of being single and dependent.

The new scullery maid looks like she will have no such problems - already she is the object of the hallboy's affection. But living as they do under the same roof, the relationship must be kept secret if they want to keep their jobs.

Episode 5 | Home and Empire
The Empire is at its height and as a celebration of British achievement abroad, the family is to host a glorious fancy-dress Empire Ball. This means dancing practice, the creation of beautiful costumes and more work in the kitchen.

For Guy the idea of having a role in the Empire is remote, but his Indian tutor, Mr Raj-Singh, caught between the worlds of upstairs and downstairs, is determined to bring the highs and lows of Imperial power back to life. So, before the Ball, Sir John agrees to allow Reji to organise a 'Raj' night as a celebration of the British in India.

In honour of the guests the hosts will serve a glorious curry supper. At least, that was the plan¿ Chef falls ill and upstairs cannot be asked to postpone. A substitute team of Antonia, Kenny and Ellen must prepare the dinner alone. Monsieur Dubiard gives instructions from his sick bed taking them through grinding the spices, cooking the breads and making the bhajis.

Contemporary thinkers including Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Darcus Howe arrive at the house to challenge the jingoistic celebrations and to question the system of command, control and hierarchy within the house. As the glittering Ball gets under way, how long can power remain concentrated in the hands of the few?

Episode 6 | Winners and Losers
Emotions are running high in Manderston as the cast's Edwardian life is drawing to a close and everyone has to face up to going back to his or her normal life in the 21st century. After three months exposure to nothing but Edwardian culture the family and staff consider what their Edwardian future might have been.

A servants' ball brings the family and the staff in direct contact on the staff's home ground. This proves an uncomfortable experience for Sir John who is beginning to realise that the apparent deference of his servants may only have been surface deep.

As they leave the house, tears of joy and sadness flow and we get our first glimpse of the cast in modern dress. The hierarchy is no more and it is hard to see these confident young people allowing it to return. For upstairs as well as down, a way of life at Manderston is coming to an end.

Historical Reality Series

Anonymous (2011)

A political thriller about who actually wrote the plays of William Shakespeare - Edward De Vere, Earl of Oxford - set against the backdrop of the succession of Queen Elizabeth I, and the Essex Rebellion against her.

Rhys Ifans (Edward De Vere)
Vanessa Redgrave (Queen Elizabeth I)
Joely Richardson (Queen Elizabeth I, younger version)
David Thewlis (William Cecil)
Rafe Spall (Shakespeare)
Jamie Campbell-Bower (young De Vere)
Derek Jacobi (narrator of prologue)

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Emmerich discusses 10 Reasons Why Shakespeare was a Fraud

View trailer

International trailer
Movie photos

Official Site

From Rope of Silicon:

Set in the political snake-pit of Elizabethan England, Anonymous speculates on an issue that has for centuries intrigued academics and brilliant minds ranging from Mark Twain and Charles Dickens to Henry James and Sigmund Freud, namely: who was the author of the plays credited to William Shakespeare? Experts have debated, books have been written, and scholars have devoted their lives to protecting or debunking theories surrounding the authorship of the most renowned works in English literature. Anonymous poses one possible answer, focusing on a time when cloak-and-dagger political intrigue, illicit romances in the Royal Court, and the schemes of greedy nobles hungry for the power of the throne were exposed in the most unlikely of places: the London stage.

Vanessa Redgrave as Elizabeth I

Joely Richardson and Jamie Campbell-Bower
(young Elizabeth and young De Vere)

Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, Roland Emmerich, Joely Richardson, David Thewlis
Photo: Zimbio

Rafe Spall and Rhys Ifans at press conference,
with Rhys' comments getting a laugh from the rest of the cast...

(16 short videos from press conference... you can cycle through or view on Youtube)

David Thewlis:"Some rather extreme things happen and some extreme claims are made but nobody can say it didn't happen which I think is the nice thing about it."

IMDb

Wikipedia