November Days: Voices and Choices

Directed by the celebrated French film-maker, Marcel Ophuls , whose Oscar-winning film about notorious war criminal Klaus Barbie Hotel, Terminus was shown on BBC television last year. The programme started out as a documentary celebrating the disappearance of the Berlin Wall, but in the making it turned into a musical comedy about the peaceful revolution. The voices of the people who were astonished and overjoyed, the choices of their politicians who had to think fast as their world came crashing down. All these are interwoven with snatches from old songs, films and BBC news reports. And what commentary could be more relevant than Bing Crosby singing Irving Berlin's Song of Freedom, inspired by US President Roosevelt's 1941 message to Congress calling for freedom of speech, freedom to worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear.