MAY 1940: 30 DAYS OF DISASTER

In May 1940, after eight months of what came to be known as “the Phoney War”, France suffered the most devastating military disaster in its history, facing a lightning-fast invasion by the German army.

Leaders were convinced that the French army was unbeatable. And yet, within the space of a month, it was routed, swept away and annihilated. The Maginot Line – a military pride inherited from the lessons of WWI – proved completely ill-suited to the Germans’ methods of warfare. But this defeat is far more complex than the picture of a clean and swift war painted by the propaganda of the Nazi occupiers and the Vichy regime. The military command’s dramatic missteps have long overshadowed the courage and suffering of their men and civilians.

By combining archival footage with poignant interviews with eyewitnesses and direct participants, the film retraces step by step the tragic events that unfolded on the ground from May 10 to June 10, 1940 – the day of the definitive German breakthrough on the Somme.