Directed by Philippe Baron • Documentary • 2024 • 52 minutes
After the landing of the Allied forces in 1944, writer Louis Guilloux was recruited as an interpreter for the American army. He would soon be confronted with the dark side of liberation: the rapes and murders committed by American soldiers on civilians. Guilloux’s involvement in subsequent investigations and court martial trials would expose him to the army's system of racial segregation and the selective punishment of Black American soldiers. Haunted by what he witnessed, he went on to recount this little-known side of the Allied liberation in his 1976 novel “OK, Joe!”.
Sparked by the recent reissue of Guilloux’s novel, director Philippe Baron set out through the Breton countryside to retrace this suppressed history. As the memory of World War II receded and American cultural dominance rose, many victims continued to be haunted by the trauma inflicted by their ostensible liberators. Interspersing archival footage, interviews, and scenes from modern-day Breton countryside, in OK, JOE! Baron crafts a harrowing account of the forgotten tragedies of World War II.
Up Next in Crime & Punishment
-
This Stolen Country of Mine (w/ Ferna...
Directed by Marc Wiese • Documentary • With Paúl Jarrín Mosquera, Fernando Villavicencio • 2022 • 93 minutes
Chinese mining in Ecuador’s mountains sets the stage for an epic battle between eco-guerrillas and a corrupt government in an intensely dramatic documentary.
This Stolen Country of Mine ...
-
One or Two Questions
Directed by Kristina Konrad • Documentary • 2018 • 237 minutes
What do peace and justice mean to you?
In 1986, the Uruguayan Parliament approved a law granting amnesty for all crimes and human rights violations committed by the army and police during the dictatorship (1973-1985). This impunity ...
-
Cocaine Unwrapped
Directed by Rachel Seifert • Documentary • 2013 • 83 minutes
COCAINE UNWRAPPED tells the story of cocaine: coca farmers in Colombia, drug mules in Ecuadorian prisons, cocaine factories in the Bolivian jungle, dealers on the streets of Mexico, law enforcement officials on the streets of Baltimore...
1 Comment