i have spoken with the kecher and we have decided that a two-night, FFF extravaganza is in order. with the soon-to-be-happening departure of nearly half our club, it only seems appropriate that we would do it one last time with the original gang, before the organizers fall back and reorg.
so. it's going to be a monday/tuesday double header. the sound of music. austria and switzerland. and the love of a good au pair to get us through.
date to come. i believe this final FFF will take place at the holyoke manor.
a fond farewell to our founding femmes.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Let's get this on the calendar, bitches.
When, where, and what are we watching in MARCH? Btw, if any of us were thoughtful and not terrible racists we would have thought to give Africa a nod in February...
And can we please watch something light and happy? Perhaps British? Canuck? Or not.
And can we please watch something light and happy? Perhaps British? Canuck? Or not.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Opertation Bernhard... The true story (according to wikipedia)
Below is the true story behind Operation Bernhard--the counterfeit operation that is fictionalized in our upcoming movie selection
The plan was directed by, and named after, SS Sturmbannführer (Major) Bernhard Krüger, who set up a team of 142 counterfeiters from inmates at Sachsenhausen concentration camp at first, and then from other camps, especially Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, the work of engraving the complex printing plates, developing the appropriate rag-based paper with the correct watermarks, and breaking the code to generate valid serial numbers was extremely difficult, but by the time Sachsenhausen was evacuated in April 1945 the printing press had produced 8,965,080 banknotes with a total value of £134,610,810. The notes are considered among the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, being almost impossible to distinguish from the real currency.
A counterfeit £5 note forged by the Jewish Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp prisoners
The initial plan was to destabilise the British economy by dropping the notes from aircraft, on the assumption that while some people would hand them in most people would keep the notes, but it was not put into effect. The Luftwaffe did not have enough planes to deliver the forgeries, and by that time the operation was in the hands of SS foreign intelligence. From late 1943 approximately one million notes per month were printed. Many were transferred from SS headquarters to a former hotel near Merano in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Northern Italy, from where they were laundered and used to pay for strategic imports and to pay German agents. It has been reported that counterfeit currency was used to finance the rescue of the arrested former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943, but there is no evidence to confirm this.
The Bank of England first learned of a plot from a spy as early as 1939. It detected the existence of the notes in 1943, and declared them "the most dangerous ever seen." Clerks first recorded the counterfeits from a British bank in Tangiers. Every banknote issued by the Bank of England as late as the 1940s was recorded in large leather-bound ledgers, still in the Bank's archives, and it was noted that one of the notes had been recorded as having been paid off. The counterfeiting team turned its attention to US currency, producing samples of one side of $100 bills on 22 February 1945 with full production scheduled to start the next day, but the Reich Security Main Office ordered the work halted and the press dismantled.
On the evacuation of Sachsenhausen, the counterfeiting team was transferred to Redl-Zipf in Austria, a subsidiary camp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. At the beginning of May 1945 the team was ordered to transfer to Ebensee subsidiary camp, where they were to be killed together. Their SS guards had only one truck for the prisoners, so the transfer required three round trips. The truck broke down during the third trip, and the last batch of prisoners had to be marched to Ebensee, where they arrived on 4 May. The guards of the first two batches of prisoners fled when the prisoners at the Ebensee camp revolted and refused to be moved into tunnels, where they would have probably been blown up. The counterfeiters then dispersed among the prisoners at Ebensee. The delayed arrival of the third batch therefore saved the lives of all - as a result of the order that all the counterfeiters be liquidated together, none were killed.
The Ebensee camp was liberated by US forces on 6 May 1945.[1] One of the prisoners, the Jewish Slovak printer-turned-counterfeiter Adolf Burger, later contributed to the awareness of Operation Bernhard with several versions of his memoirs published in Central European languages and in Persian. An English version was published in 2009 as The Devils Workshop.[2]
After the war, Major Krüger was detained by the British for two years, then turned over to the French for a year. He said they asked him to forge documents but that he refused. He was released in 1948 without any charges being pressed. In the 1950s he went before a De-Nazification Court, where statements were produced from the forger-inmates whose lives he had been responsible for saving. He later worked for the company that had produced the special paper for the Operation Bernhard forgeries. He died in 1989.
After the defeat of the Third Reich, large bundles of fake pounds ended up in the hands of the Jewish underground, which used the forged notes to buy equipment and to bring displaced persons to the Holy Land, among them Chaim Shurik, a Polish printer whose 20-page account of his counterfeiting days was written in Hebrew.[3]
It is believed that most of the notes produced ended up at the bottom of Lake Toplitz near Ebensee, from where they were recovered by divers in 1959, but examples continued to turn up in circulation in Britain for many years, which caused the Bank of England to withdraw all notes larger than £5 from circulation, and not reintroduce other denominations until the early 1960s (£10), 1970 (£20) and 1980 (£50).
The plan was directed by, and named after, SS Sturmbannführer (Major) Bernhard Krüger, who set up a team of 142 counterfeiters from inmates at Sachsenhausen concentration camp at first, and then from other camps, especially Auschwitz. Beginning in 1942, the work of engraving the complex printing plates, developing the appropriate rag-based paper with the correct watermarks, and breaking the code to generate valid serial numbers was extremely difficult, but by the time Sachsenhausen was evacuated in April 1945 the printing press had produced 8,965,080 banknotes with a total value of £134,610,810. The notes are considered among the most perfect counterfeits ever produced, being almost impossible to distinguish from the real currency.
A counterfeit £5 note forged by the Jewish Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp prisoners
The initial plan was to destabilise the British economy by dropping the notes from aircraft, on the assumption that while some people would hand them in most people would keep the notes, but it was not put into effect. The Luftwaffe did not have enough planes to deliver the forgeries, and by that time the operation was in the hands of SS foreign intelligence. From late 1943 approximately one million notes per month were printed. Many were transferred from SS headquarters to a former hotel near Merano in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Northern Italy, from where they were laundered and used to pay for strategic imports and to pay German agents. It has been reported that counterfeit currency was used to finance the rescue of the arrested former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943, but there is no evidence to confirm this.
The Bank of England first learned of a plot from a spy as early as 1939. It detected the existence of the notes in 1943, and declared them "the most dangerous ever seen." Clerks first recorded the counterfeits from a British bank in Tangiers. Every banknote issued by the Bank of England as late as the 1940s was recorded in large leather-bound ledgers, still in the Bank's archives, and it was noted that one of the notes had been recorded as having been paid off. The counterfeiting team turned its attention to US currency, producing samples of one side of $100 bills on 22 February 1945 with full production scheduled to start the next day, but the Reich Security Main Office ordered the work halted and the press dismantled.
On the evacuation of Sachsenhausen, the counterfeiting team was transferred to Redl-Zipf in Austria, a subsidiary camp of Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. At the beginning of May 1945 the team was ordered to transfer to Ebensee subsidiary camp, where they were to be killed together. Their SS guards had only one truck for the prisoners, so the transfer required three round trips. The truck broke down during the third trip, and the last batch of prisoners had to be marched to Ebensee, where they arrived on 4 May. The guards of the first two batches of prisoners fled when the prisoners at the Ebensee camp revolted and refused to be moved into tunnels, where they would have probably been blown up. The counterfeiters then dispersed among the prisoners at Ebensee. The delayed arrival of the third batch therefore saved the lives of all - as a result of the order that all the counterfeiters be liquidated together, none were killed.
The Ebensee camp was liberated by US forces on 6 May 1945.[1] One of the prisoners, the Jewish Slovak printer-turned-counterfeiter Adolf Burger, later contributed to the awareness of Operation Bernhard with several versions of his memoirs published in Central European languages and in Persian. An English version was published in 2009 as The Devils Workshop.[2]
After the war, Major Krüger was detained by the British for two years, then turned over to the French for a year. He said they asked him to forge documents but that he refused. He was released in 1948 without any charges being pressed. In the 1950s he went before a De-Nazification Court, where statements were produced from the forger-inmates whose lives he had been responsible for saving. He later worked for the company that had produced the special paper for the Operation Bernhard forgeries. He died in 1989.
After the defeat of the Third Reich, large bundles of fake pounds ended up in the hands of the Jewish underground, which used the forged notes to buy equipment and to bring displaced persons to the Holy Land, among them Chaim Shurik, a Polish printer whose 20-page account of his counterfeiting days was written in Hebrew.[3]
It is believed that most of the notes produced ended up at the bottom of Lake Toplitz near Ebensee, from where they were recovered by divers in 1959, but examples continued to turn up in circulation in Britain for many years, which caused the Bank of England to withdraw all notes larger than £5 from circulation, and not reintroduce other denominations until the early 1960s (£10), 1970 (£20) and 1980 (£50).
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
I German! I sing song for you!
This month we will explore our love of all things German!! We will be watching The Counterfeiter. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 2008 and was nominated for a bunch of other German film awards.
Our night of oom-pah-pah fun will be hosted at the wonderful house of Ms. Hailey Voelker on February 23. The address is 150 Huntington #SE8 and her number is 512-914-8228.
The Counterfeiters is the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis in 1936. Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a mischievous life of cards, booze, and women in Berlin during the Nazi-era. Suddenly his luck runs dry when arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. Immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills there and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Bernhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. But while Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany's allied opponents, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop Operation Bernhard's aid to the war effort. Faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions, which could prolong the war and risk the lives of fellow prisoners, are ultimately the right ones.
So start thinking about what you want to cook, and keep an eye out for more updates!
Our night of oom-pah-pah fun will be hosted at the wonderful house of Ms. Hailey Voelker on February 23. The address is 150 Huntington #SE8 and her number is 512-914-8228.
The Counterfeiters is the true story of the largest counterfeiting operation in history, set up by the Nazis in 1936. Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch is the king of counterfeiters. He lives a mischievous life of cards, booze, and women in Berlin during the Nazi-era. Suddenly his luck runs dry when arrested by Superintendent Friedrich Herzog. Immediately thrown into the Mauthausen concentration camp, Salomon exhibits exceptional skills there and is soon transferred to the upgraded camp of Sachsenhausen. Upon his arrival, he once again comes face to face with Herzog, who is there on a secret mission. Hand-picked for his unique skill, Salomon and a group of professionals are forced to produce fake foreign currency under the program Operation Bernhard. The team, which also includes detainee Adolf Burger, is given luxury barracks for their assistance. But while Salomon attempts to weaken the economy of Germany's allied opponents, Adolf refuses to use his skills for Nazi profit and would like to do something to stop Operation Bernhard's aid to the war effort. Faced with a moral dilemma, Salomon must decide whether his actions, which could prolong the war and risk the lives of fellow prisoners, are ultimately the right ones.
So start thinking about what you want to cook, and keep an eye out for more updates!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
"Once" Over
Hello dear friends.
As the holidays draw nearer and nearer, it is time once again for a gathering of the FFF. Our next viewing will be at Chateau Beaulieu on Monday, November 24th, 2008. We will gather at 7:30. The film will begin promptly at 8.
The film we will be screening is Once, a modern day Irish musical. Once was a winner at the 2007 Academy Awards, and received rave reviews. It was shot by one man with a handicam. Additional information about the film can be found at imdb.com.
In honor of the film, we will be enjoying Irish delicacies. Corey and I will make a main course, and each of you can be responsible for a substantial side or dessert.
We look forward to kicking of the Thanksgiving week with each of you!
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Reviewing Devil's Backbone
From the UK Observer:
The Devil's Backbone
Philip French
Sunday December 2, 2001The Observer
For 30 years now, Spain has been making movies in which the Spanish Civil War is observed from its fringe through the puzzled eyes of sensitive children. The finest of them is Victor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive, shot two years before Franco's death, and The Devil's Backbone, written and directed by the Mexican Guillermo del Toro and produced by Pedro Almodóvar, is a worthy addition. Like del Toro's earlier pictures, Cronos and Mimic, it's a ghost story not entirely unlike the recent Spanish success The Others.
The film takes place at an isolated orphanage on a hot, dry plain in 1938 when the Fascists are clearly in the ascendancy. The orphanage is run by a kindly couple, the crippled Carmen (Almodóvar's marvellous leading lady Marisa Paredes) and the elderly Dr Casares (Federico Luppi). They're covert loyalist supporters, and their latest charge is Carlos (Fernando Tielve), whose father was recently killed in battle.
From the start there's an uneasy, eerie atmosphere. Carlos is bullied by his fellow orphans; he tries to make sense of overheard conversations; a giant unexploded bomb in the courtyard is mysteriously connected with the disappearance of one of the boys and the rumours of a threatening spirit, 'the one who sighs'.
Carlos keeps catching glimpses of a ghostly figure that issues warnings of forthcoming catastrophe, and after a group of International Brigade prisoners are brought to the house and summarily executed, it becomes clear that Carmen and Dr Casares must flee for their lives. At this point a quiet, suggestive picture suddenly turns into shockingly violent melodrama with the vindictive ex-inmate Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) as the catalyst. There are even echoes of Lord of the Flies in the brutal climax. It's a striking film and further good news for the Spanish cinema, too few of whose films open here.
Some of the other reviewers commented that they felt the ending did not live up to a promising beginning. In many ways, I see their point. Not only did the fear factor of the story fall apart after Carlos confronts Santi, but the final death scene in which the chidren over run the tyrant lacked a little umpfh. At the same time, one might see the dissipation of fear in both viewer and character as the maturation of the boys as they come into a new age of their lives and of Spain. In this vein, the viewer becomes less of an observer of Carlos and more of a participant in his journey at the orphanage. Thoughts?
The Devil's Backbone
Philip French
Sunday December 2, 2001The Observer
For 30 years now, Spain has been making movies in which the Spanish Civil War is observed from its fringe through the puzzled eyes of sensitive children. The finest of them is Victor Erice's Spirit of the Beehive, shot two years before Franco's death, and The Devil's Backbone, written and directed by the Mexican Guillermo del Toro and produced by Pedro Almodóvar, is a worthy addition. Like del Toro's earlier pictures, Cronos and Mimic, it's a ghost story not entirely unlike the recent Spanish success The Others.
The film takes place at an isolated orphanage on a hot, dry plain in 1938 when the Fascists are clearly in the ascendancy. The orphanage is run by a kindly couple, the crippled Carmen (Almodóvar's marvellous leading lady Marisa Paredes) and the elderly Dr Casares (Federico Luppi). They're covert loyalist supporters, and their latest charge is Carlos (Fernando Tielve), whose father was recently killed in battle.
From the start there's an uneasy, eerie atmosphere. Carlos is bullied by his fellow orphans; he tries to make sense of overheard conversations; a giant unexploded bomb in the courtyard is mysteriously connected with the disappearance of one of the boys and the rumours of a threatening spirit, 'the one who sighs'.
Carlos keeps catching glimpses of a ghostly figure that issues warnings of forthcoming catastrophe, and after a group of International Brigade prisoners are brought to the house and summarily executed, it becomes clear that Carmen and Dr Casares must flee for their lives. At this point a quiet, suggestive picture suddenly turns into shockingly violent melodrama with the vindictive ex-inmate Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega) as the catalyst. There are even echoes of Lord of the Flies in the brutal climax. It's a striking film and further good news for the Spanish cinema, too few of whose films open here.
Some of the other reviewers commented that they felt the ending did not live up to a promising beginning. In many ways, I see their point. Not only did the fear factor of the story fall apart after Carlos confronts Santi, but the final death scene in which the chidren over run the tyrant lacked a little umpfh. At the same time, one might see the dissipation of fear in both viewer and character as the maturation of the boys as they come into a new age of their lives and of Spain. In this vein, the viewer becomes less of an observer of Carlos and more of a participant in his journey at the orphanage. Thoughts?
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
The Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War started after an attempted coup d'état committed 
by parts of the army against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. The Civil War devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939, ending with the victory of the rebels, the founding of a dictatorship led by the Fascist General Francisco Franco, and the defeat of the supporters of the Republic. Republicans (republicanos), gained the support of the Soviet Union and Mexico, while the followers of the rebellion, nacionales (Nationalists), received the support of the major European Axis powers, namely Italy, Germany, as well as neighbouring Portugal.
The war increased tensions in the lead-up to World War II and was largely seen as a possible war by proxy between the Communist Soviet Union and the Fascist Axis of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In particular, tanks and bombing of cities from the air were features of the later war in Europe. The advent of the mass media allowed an unprecedented level of attention (Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell and Robert Capa all covered it) and so the war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, and for atrocities committed on both sides of the conflict. Like other Civil Wars, the Spanish Civil War often pitted family members and trusted neighbours and friends against each other. Apart from the combatants, many civilians were killed for their political or religious views by both sides, and after the war ended in 1939, Republicans were at times persecuted by the victorious Nationalists.
For more information, please visit: http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
by parts of the army against the government of the Second Spanish Republic. The Civil War devastated Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939, ending with the victory of the rebels, the founding of a dictatorship led by the Fascist General Francisco Franco, and the defeat of the supporters of the Republic. Republicans (republicanos), gained the support of the Soviet Union and Mexico, while the followers of the rebellion, nacionales (Nationalists), received the support of the major European Axis powers, namely Italy, Germany, as well as neighbouring Portugal.
The war increased tensions in the lead-up to World War II and was largely seen as a possible war by proxy between the Communist Soviet Union and the Fascist Axis of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. In particular, tanks and bombing of cities from the air were features of the later war in Europe. The advent of the mass media allowed an unprecedented level of attention (Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, George Orwell and Robert Capa all covered it) and so the war became notable for the passion and political division it inspired, and for atrocities committed on both sides of the conflict. Like other Civil Wars, the Spanish Civil War often pitted family members and trusted neighbours and friends against each other. Apart from the combatants, many civilians were killed for their political or religious views by both sides, and after the war ended in 1939, Republicans were at times persecuted by the victorious Nationalists.For more information, please visit: http://http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War
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