COME BEFORE WINTER

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his companions in the dying gasps of the Third Reich.

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"WE HAVE FOR ONCE LEARNED TO SEE THE GREAT EVENTS OF WORLD HISTORY FROM BELOW."

― DIETRICH BONHOEFFER

 

After years of admiring Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Minnesota psychiatrist Gary Blount and German filmmaker Hellmut Schlingenslepen team up with California director and film editor Kevin Ekvall (I'm Not Leaving, 2014) to share the view from below. 

Filmed on the Baltic island of Rügen, in Berlin, Buchenwald, Flossenbürg and various locations in England and the United States, this docudrama lifts the curtain on cruel ironies of the last weeks of World War II in Europe and tracks two longtime foes of Adolf Hitler, virtuoso propagandist Sefton Delmer and iconoclastic pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

COME BEFORE WINTER HONORED with two ICVM CROWN AWARDS

Producer Gary Blount and Director Kevin Ekvall accepted two Crown Awards at the closing event of the Annual ICVM (International Christian Visual Media) Conference staged in Nashville, TN, from July 11-14, 2018. The Crown Awards recognize films or videos which reflect Christian values and demonstrate excellence in production and content and voting is done by peers who are also in the business of creating this type of film.

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE
fighting the nazis with fake news

A new documentary rediscovers a World War II campaign that was stranger than nonfiction.

“Between 1941 and 1943, an exceedingly peculiar series of transmissions reached radio sets in Germany. The broadcaster called himself Der Chef, or the chief, and his Berliner accent and prodigious knowledge of military affairs suggested he was a high-ranking German of the old guard, probably an army officer.”

The writer Matthew Shaer provides examples of the disinformation campaign organized by British journalist Sefton Delmer and identifies him and his fake news factory as being the subject of the new documentary film Come Before Winter produced by Gary Blount.

“By most accounts the broadcasts were insidiously effective: Hitler’s high command repeatedly attempted to block the signal,” writes Shaer. After the war, Delmer resumed work as a journalist for Britain’s Daily Express and also produced a memoir in which he proudly revealed his role in the war effort as a source of Black Propaganda which reached an extensive audience.

Link to SmithsonianMag.com article. Download PDF of Smithsonian Magazine article.

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HOST A SCREENING with
Producer Gary Blount, Ph.D., M.D. and other story experts. Let our creators guide you through the last days of the war.

THIS FILM'S ABOUT FAKE NEWS AND HIGH FIDELITY.

Explore the film's key concepts as Dietrich Bonhoeffer is put in his place.

Among the six important conspirators condemned April 8 at Flossenbürg, why was Dietrich Bonhoeffer the only civilian?

Was fake news born with Black Propaganda?

Is stealing Hitler's medical records the moral equivalent of an Allied campaign to broadcast false and misleading information?

Gain insight into the characters surrounding Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his last days: Payne Best, Sigmund Rascher, Isa Vermehren and others.