Near the end of World War II, Sweden––which had managed to remain neutral during the conflict––conducted one of the most successful humanitarian missions of the whole period. Known as the “White Buses” operation due to the color of the paint used to transport Scandinavians freed from concentration camps back to safety, the operation rescued more than fifteen thousand people between March and May of 1945.
One of them was Nadine Hwang, the glamorous daughter of the Chinese ambassador to Spain who had moved among the most exclusive intellectual and artistic circles in pre-war Paris. It’s most likely that it was due to her participation in activities to aid the Resistance, that Hwang found herself imprisoned in Ravensbrück, an all-women’s camp north of Berlin. But I’m getting ahead of myself, a sin never committed by director Magnus Gertten in his moving documentary Nelly & Nadine.
Gertten introduces us...
One of them was Nadine Hwang, the glamorous daughter of the Chinese ambassador to Spain who had moved among the most exclusive intellectual and artistic circles in pre-war Paris. It’s most likely that it was due to her participation in activities to aid the Resistance, that Hwang found herself imprisoned in Ravensbrück, an all-women’s camp north of Berlin. But I’m getting ahead of myself, a sin never committed by director Magnus Gertten in his moving documentary Nelly & Nadine.
Gertten introduces us...
- 12/19/2022
- by Jose Solís
- The Film Stage
Positive trends in filmmaking are hard to come by these days, so a recent wealth of documentaries uncovering lost chapters of queer history is cause for celebration. This year saw “Casa Susanna” and “Loving Highsmith,” two excellent entries in a growing canon that can always use more. While those films discovered a queer community ahead of its time and celebrated one of our most influential lesbian writers, the poignant documentary “Nelly & Nadine” Bolstered by gorgeous archival Super 8 footage of queer life in the 1950s, “Nelly & Nadine” offers a tender romance with a surprisingly vibrant slice of queer history.
Directed by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Gertten, “Nelly & Nadine” is told through the perspective of Sylvie Bianchi, a genial woman who lives with her husband on a farm in Northern France. Open-hearted and vulnerable, she is proud to share the story of her grandmother, even if the retelling makes her quite emotional. Her grandmother,...
Directed by Swedish filmmaker Magnus Gertten, “Nelly & Nadine” is told through the perspective of Sylvie Bianchi, a genial woman who lives with her husband on a farm in Northern France. Open-hearted and vulnerable, she is proud to share the story of her grandmother, even if the retelling makes her quite emotional. Her grandmother,...
- 12/17/2022
- by Jude Dry
- Indiewire
This year brought several WWII documentaries that took their inspiration from images in old footage, including “Three Minutes: A Lengthening” and “From Where They Stood.” The latest of these, Magnus Gertten’s “Nelly & Nadine,” makes outstanding use of this compelling approach.
Gertten has actually already employed this method, with his 2015 film “Every Face Has a Name.” His intention then was to identify as many people as possible in footage of survivors who arrived in Sweden on April 28, 1945. One of them was Nadine Hwang, though nothing else was known about her. During a screening of the film, Gertten was approached by a French farmer named Sylvie Bianchi, who told him that Hwang was her grandmother’s secret lover.
The story only gets more astonishing from there. Bianchi’s grandmother, Nelly, was once a celebrated Belgian singer who worked as a member of the Resistance. She was arrested by the Gestapo in...
Gertten has actually already employed this method, with his 2015 film “Every Face Has a Name.” His intention then was to identify as many people as possible in footage of survivors who arrived in Sweden on April 28, 1945. One of them was Nadine Hwang, though nothing else was known about her. During a screening of the film, Gertten was approached by a French farmer named Sylvie Bianchi, who told him that Hwang was her grandmother’s secret lover.
The story only gets more astonishing from there. Bianchi’s grandmother, Nelly, was once a celebrated Belgian singer who worked as a member of the Resistance. She was arrested by the Gestapo in...
- 12/15/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
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