Veterans Commemoration Month 2024: Foreign Films

The first documentary ever chosen to compete in the International Critics' Week at Cannes (where it won the grand prize), Janus Metz's Armadillo follows a platoon of Danish soldiers on a six-month tour of Afghanistan in 2009. An intimate, visually stunning account of both the horror and growing cynicism of modern warfare, the film premiered at the top of the box office in Denmark, provoking a national debate over government policy and the rules of engagement.

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Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, BEAUFORT chronicles the final days of an Israeli army unit's tense, painful withdrawal in 2000 from a strategic bunker inside a 12th century Crusader fortress near the Lebanese border, marking the end of nearly two decades of controversial occupation.

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In this captivating historical drama, four French servicewomen are enlisted into the British Special Operations Executive. Their misson is to first rescue a British army geologist caught reconnoitering the beaches at Normandy, and then to kill a German SS colonel who is close to figuring out about the allies' imminent plan to execute D-Day.

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Based on the true story about the three dramatic days in April 1940 when the King of Norway was presented with an unimaginable ultimatum from the German armed forces: Surrender or die. After three days of desperately trying to evade the Germans, King Haakon makes his final decision. He refuses to capitulate, even if it may cost him, his family and many Norwegians their lives.

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A war drama based on the history of the Sobibor extermination camp uprising during WWII and focuses on Soviet officer Alexander Pechersky. When he was a POW in SOBIBOR, he managed to do the impossible - to organize a revolt and mass escape of the prisoners. Many of the escapees were later caught and died - the rest led by Pechersky managed to join the partisans.

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UNKNOWN SOLDIER by award-winning Finnish director Aku Louhimies follows a platoon of Finnish soldiers on a tour of duty that lasts for more than three years at the end of World War II. The film tells the story of Rokka, Kariluoto, Koskela, Hietanen, and their brothers-in-arms, showing how friendship, humor, and the will to live unite these men on their way to and from the battlefield. The war changes each of the soldiers, as well as the lives of those on the home front, leaving its mark on the entire nation. Based on the classic novel by Vaino Linna, UNKNOWN SOLDIER broke box office records in Finland, becoming the highest-grossing movie in decades.

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