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In June 1944, when a severe storm threatens Project Overlord, the long planned-for Allied invasion of France against the Nazis, the High Command contacts a coven of weather witches in Normandy to somehow alter the path of the storm. With consequences both triumphant and tragic, The Elementals explores the themes of desperation, courage and sacrifice in the face of terrible tyranny. Magic combines with grit and determination to help propel one of the most significant battles of WWII. And in a twist, the story is not only dramatic, but personal, as well.
Director Maureen Hascoet’s grandparents on both sides were involved in the French Resistance, a group of freedom fighters which is often overlooked in many sweeping narratives of WWII. Hundreds of French men & women put their lives at risk every day for four years, moving information, weapons, and people across large distances. Le Chant des Résistants is the soundtrack to the core scene of the film, especially as it highlights what ordinary people sacrificed every day until Liberation.
Nazi-occupied France in 1944 is a grim and dangerous place, especially if you’re a French Resistance fighter. Gerard Blasey and his team of provocateurs repair German trucks by day and save downed Allied pilots by night, smuggling them into Paris under the noses of the Nazis prior to ushering them to neutral countries and back to England. During the course of the war, a very special artifact, the Bayeux Tapestry of Normandy, is stolen by the Germans and hidden in a secluded French chateau deep in the Norman countryside. Gerard’s cousin Bernadette works in the chateau and uses her connections to smuggle Gerard into the chateau to check on the status of the Tapestry for the Allied High Command. While inspecting the Tapestry by candlelight, Gerard inadvertently triggers deep magic woven into the linen and thread and is hurled 900 years into the past to Canterbury, England, where the Tapestry is being created. Trapped in the past, Gerard experiences the Norman occupation of England after the Norman Conquest while trying desperately to return to 1944 France. Along the way he bonds with his fellow soldiers, finds unlooked-for romance, averts a disastrous plot to humiliate King William’s brother and, eventually, returns to France just in time for D-Day and a daring, last-minute rescue of the Tapestry from Heinrich Himmler’s clutches. Based on true events, filled with weather witches and twists and turns over nine centuries, CODENAME: MATILDA will enthrall and delight history and time-travel fans alike.
Piercing Time is a 10-part historical drama based on the story of the Bassett family in England almost 1,000 years ago. A political thriller and love story, Piercing Time follows the life of Cynewyn of Drayton, a Saxon/Mercian heiress from a long line of powerful landowners who falls on hard times after the Normans take away her land and very nearly, her life. Winding through the story are falconers, priests, jongleurs, seamstresses, kings, queens and exotic Turkish guardsmen. Cynewyn’s fate is intimately tied to the creation of the Bayeux Tapestry, an artifact of crowning genius that may or may not have been a tool of propaganda for the Saxon cause. While Cynewyn of Drayton is fictional, the events in the story are real.
In the near-future world of More Perfect Union, two main countries have emerged after a devastating civil war has destroyed the United States: New Albion and the Confederacy.
New Albion is a female-centric society in which marriage is banished in favor of contracts while affording women complete control over their own bodies. Environmentally conscious and Earth-friendly, New Albion is egalitarian and inclusive, a little bit hippy, a little bit high tech.
The other country is ConFed, the Confederacy of old. In contrast to New Albion, ConFed is a bastion of male domination where most women have lost the right to vote, women’s reproductive rights are non-existent and life is very good for the very few.
At the beginning of Angleterre in 1066, the Battle of Hastings changes the course of England forever. The Normans and Saxons, two warring cultures with different customs and languages, are very much at odds with each other even after the initial battle. And contrary to general perception, Hastings is the beginning of the struggle as England bursts with rebellion and resistance.
The story follows the romance of Thurstan, Grand Falconer to William the Conqueror, and Cynewyn of Drayton, a Mercian princess. It also follows Edith, former Queen of England, and Cynewyn’s involvement in the making of the Bayeux Tapestry, a cartoon of the Conquest in wool and linen. In the face of Norman propaganda and under the noses of the all-powerful royals and nobility, the women cunningly seek to preserve the true memory of the last Saxon king, Edith’s brother Harold.