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Defiance - Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Edward Zwick

Threat advisory: Elevated - Significant risk of entertaining activities

Movie propaganda

Freedom begins with an act of defiance.

The year is 1941 and the Jews of Eastern Europe are being massacred by the thousands. Managing to escape certain death, three brothers take refuge in the dense surrounding woods they have known since childhood. There they begin their desperate battle against the Nazis. The brothers turn a primitive struggle to survive into something far more consequential - a way to avenge the deaths of their loved ones by saving thousands of others.

At first it is all they can do to stay alive. But gradually, as whispers of their daring spreads, they begin to attract others - men and women, young and old - willing to risk everything for the sake of even a moment's freedom. As a brutal winter descends, they work to create a community, and to keep faith alive when all humanity appeared to be lost.

Theatrical propaganda posters

Target demographic movie keyword propaganda

Film action true war World War II Eastern Europe Jew partisan resistance Nazi occupation forest

Persons of interest

Daniel Craig .... Tuvia Bielski
Liev Schreiber .... Zus Bielski
Jamie Bell .... Asael Bielski
George MacKay .... Aron Bielski
Mia Wasikowska .... Chaya
Alexa Davalos .... Lilka
Jodhi May .... Tamara Skedelsky
Mark Feuerstein .... Malbin
Tomas Arana .... Ben Zion
Iddo Goldberg .... Yitzchak Shulman
Jacek Koman .... Koscik
Allan Corduner .... Shamon
Sam Spruell .... Arkady Lubezanski
Sakalas Uzdavinys .... Lova
Rolandas Boravskis .... Gramov
Nechama Tec .... Author: Defiance: The Bielski Partisans
Clayton Frohman .... Screenwriter
Edward Zwick .... Screenwriter
Edward Zwick .... Director

Cinematic intelligence sources

Defiance official movie site
Defiance film production notes
Defiance QuickTime movie trailers
Awards and film festivals:

Studios and distributors:

Roadshow Films

Intelligence analyst

Special Agent Matti

Theatrical report

I'd always wondered what happened to the Jews who escaped being rounded up as fodder for the ovens. Now I know. They struggles, they fought, they survived. It turns out that the Jews weren't a bunch of submissive weaklings who let everyone push them around, they were just people who couldn't conceive that other human beings would build murder factories in order to destroy them. (NB: Uprising is different because the Jews in the ghetto had been pushed into a corner; fighting back becomes more a matter of physics than philosophy.)

Like most partisan groups there isn't a lot of fighting: most of what's going on is being wet, cold, dirty and hungry. The few moments of running, shooting, killing and bleeding are a weekend terror kind of thing. That's good because it's realistic. Realism is good in war films because it makes the running, shooting, killing and bleeding more exciting.

Even though Defiance isn't a big film or even a surprising film it graphically demonstrates what it takes to survive in the big, bad world. And don't think that this kind of thing can't happen here and now. Just ask the Kurds, the Albanians, the Timorese, the Karen...

The action, true, war movie Defiance is directed by Edward Zwick and stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell.