With its spectacular, unusual and extremely varied landscapes – beaches, industrial and port areas, and the hinterland – the Dunkirk area attracts many film shoots. Dunkirk Urban Community wants to make the city and its surroundings a real “land of cinema”, and the city has chosen the hosting of film productions as one of the priorities for its economic development. Dunkirk has been the location for a large number of productions, the most recent being the films Ma part du gâteau and La Tête Haute and the series Tunnel and Baron Noir, with the new Kéchichian film due in September.
Dunkirk, location of Christopher Nolan’s new film
It is the first time an American blockbuster on this scale has been shot in France, and it is Dunkirk that has been chosen.
The English-American director Christopher Nolan (who gave us Inception, Interstellar, and several episodes of the Batman saga) shot his new film, “Dunkirk”, here between late May and the end of June 2016. The leading actors of this Warner Bros blockbuster are Tom Hardy, Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy and Harry Styles (leader of the One Direction band). The film tells the story of a key episode of World War Two, Operation Dynamo, which lasted from 26 May to 4 June 1940, and during which 338,226 allied soldiers, encircled by German troops, were evacuated from Dunkirk on board 800 boats to the ports of southern England. Dunkirk and its port were completely destroyed by the Nazis. Britain saw this rescue of 220,000 of their soldiers as a victory over Hitler.
The expression “Spirit of Dunkirk”, which was coined after Operation Dynamo, still resonates throughout the English-speaking world. But to see “Dunkirk” on the big screen, we’ll have to wait until 19 July 2017.
