The Forgotten Battle

November 1944. On the flooded isle of Walcheren, Zeeland, thousands of Allied soldiers are battling the German army. Three young lives become inextricably connected. A Dutch boy fighting for the Germans, an English glider pilot and a girl from Zeeland connected to the resistance against her will, are forced to make crucial choices that impact both their own freedom and the freedom of others.

Three young people each experience the war from a different perspective, making it obvious that the boundary between right and wrong is by no means always clear, but that you cannot escape in having to make choices.

Alain de Levita was approached by the vfonds, the National Fund for Peace, Freedom and Veterans Care, after the production of the war film ‘Banker of the Resistance’. They wanted to do something in honour of 75 years of liberation to make the younger generation aware of what happened in the Netherlands. A feature film seemed to them to be the best way to do this.
Alain brought his partner and companion Paula van der Oest in for the screenplay. And he managed to get the interest of director Matthijs van Heijningen jr. to direct an epic story about war and freedom.

Matthijs seemed to be the perfect director for this film. He’s one of the few people in the Netherlands who knows how to do things big and make things special with CGI. That’s why The Forgotten Battle has become a film you hardly ever see in the Netherlands.

With a budget of 14 million euros, The Forgotten Battle is one of the most expensive Dutch films ever. No expense or effort is spared to make it clear what war does to people, especially young people, in the year that 75 years of peace are celebrated.

Central to the film is the ‘Battle of the Scheldt’, which took place in the autumn of 1944 in Zeeland and West-Brabant and in which more than 10,000 people lost their lives. This battle, which was decisive for the course of the Second World War, is known as one of the most important and fiercest battles in Western Europe. Yet little attention has been paid to it over the years. The film will change this and tells the story of three young characters who each deal with war and freedom in their own way.

Director Matthijs van Heijningen about “The Forgotten Battle”

A film with the theme ‘liberation’. What does ‘being liberated’ still mean for young people in 2020? Does it still mean anything 75 years after our last great war? Are today’s young people aware of the sacrifices young people made to liberate our country? What is it like to be faced with the choice of either cooperating with the occupying forces or risking your life for a greater good? What is it like to be seduced by the splendour of fascism and then face the inhuman consequences of that choice?

I do not think it is possible to imagine it now. I hope that this film will make tangible what young people have endured for the freedom of our country. The freedom in which we still live today. It is not only about physical freedom, but also about the freedom to be who you are, to be able to think what you think, to believe in what you believe in. Freedom is a universal theme of all times and unfortunately it is still relevant today.

In order to make a film that distinguishes itself from all those other films about WWII, a film that touches on the contemporary experience of freedom, we have chosen three different perspectives, those of three main characters: Teuntje, Marinus and William. Three young people who each experience war from a different perspective. In this way we hope to create a more nuanced image than the image of ‘us’ against ‘them’ and good versus evil. Because good and evil is in everyone and is something of all times.