"Rape of Europa": Riveting Documentary Movie About Nazi Plunder & Present Day Epilogue

Rape of Europa is about power, greed, wealth and war. This movie proves that art history is sexy- anything but the staid slide lectures in darkened auditoriums you avoided in college, I promise. Using rare archival footage and first person interviews of the real life heroes, the movie documents the systematic theft, deliberate destruction and miraculous survival of Europe’s art treasures during the Third Reich and World War II.

Have you been reading about Ronald Lauder's recent $135 million dollar (the most expensive piece of art ever) purchase of Gustave Klimt's "Adele Bloch-Bauer"? You'll learn why the painting is so important to the Jewish community. The title of the movie is the name of a 1640 Polish masterwork painted for King Wladislaw. Polish/Slav culture was deemed "heathen" by the Nazis and slated for systematic eradication, though this painting and others deemed worthy were carried off to be hung in Nazi museums.
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?workNumber=L898

Actual Films was formed in 1998 by filmmakers Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, who met while completing their graduate work in the Stanford University Documentary Film Program. Before writing/directing/producing The Rape of Europa, Director Richard Berge was a writer and producer for KQED's SPARK!, the weekly television series about the arts in the San Francisco Bay Area. He's another Stanford guy- B.A. History and '94 Masters in Documentary Film. Many important arts organizations provided funding for this film including San Francisco's own Bernard Osher Jewish Philanthropies Foundation.

Actual Films was able to secure a limited run at Landmark Theatre's Embarcadero Cinema after the film's showing at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Like all quality independent films, Rape of Europa depends on word of mouth for publicity and your ticket purchase will convince Landmark (the nation's largest theatre chain dedicated primarily to exhibiting and marketing independent film) to take it national.

http://www.actualfilms.net/index.htm http://www.therapeofeuropa.com/

Not rated. 117 minutes. Now playing at the Landmark Embarcadero Theater, One Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, CA 94111 Moving to Opera Plaza Friday, May 25