Wenn Völker streiten

Henri Toussaint from France and Frederik Faber from Germany are good friends. Henri is also in love with Frederik”s sister, Lize. When the war breaks out, Henri joins the French army while Frederik volunteers for the German army.Wenn Völker streiten was one of the first anti-war films of the early cinema, together with Maudite soit la guerre (1915) by Alfred Machin. The director, Cäsar Lupow, was an Italian actually called Cesare Lupo, who found work under his new name in the German film industry.Wenn Völker streiten was already filmed in the first months of World War I and is as such regarded as an especially evocative pacifistic pamphlet: the horrors of war are painted in the finest of colours. The film was praised in its own time for its sophisticated chromatic spectrum obtained via tinting, for its unsentimental directing style and its graphic quality: the impressive scenes brought home to the audiences the horrors of the war.

With a supporting programme: Stef Visjager and Chris Bajema (Radiomakers Desmet) present a selection of spoken texts, including theatrical texts by the Austrian satirist and journalist Karl Kraus (1874-1936), author of the anti-war play Die letzten Tage der Menschheit (1919) and chief editor of the bitingly critical one-man journal Die Fackel. Sound effects and music by Rik Mol (trumpet).EYE curator Elif Rongen introduces the film by a talk (in Dutch), De Eerste Wereldoorlog en de Desmetcollectie.