A24 will be releasing Steve McQueen’s new film, “Occupied City” on December 25th, which is a 4 hour documentary based on Bianca Stigter’s “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945).

The synopsis reads: “The past collides with our precarious present in Steve McQueen’s bravura documentary Occupied City, informed by the book “Atlas of an Occupied City (Amsterdam 1940-1945),” written by Bianca Stigter. McQueen creates two interlocking portraits: a door-to-door excavation of the Nazi occupation that still haunts his adopted city, and a vivid journey through the last years of pandemic and protest. What emerges is both devastating and life-affirming, an expansive meditation on memory, time, and where we’re headed.”

Steve McQueen shares this about the film: “At first, I had this idea for an artwork that would project the present onto the past. My wife was writing this book and while talking to her, I thought it would be great to film the book. I didn’t think in a million years that my wife and I would collaborate, but somehow this emerged. With the rise of the far right being very vocal and given an actual platform, it’s being legitimized. I think when you get the images of what’s happening now and the actual stories of the past and put them together, it makes us question everything. It wasn’t a case of wanting to do something long. It was a case of wanting to do something right.”