As their documentary about Nazi-occupied Amsterdam is released, Steve McQueen and Bianca Stigter explain why this film is “a meditation, not a history lesson”
AB: You said this isn’t a moralising film. Do you see it as an act of memorialisation? SM: No, I don’t think so. There’s no dust on this picture. I’m not interested in that. It’s active, it’s muscular. It’s not a statue. It’s much more mobile than. Forgive me for saying this, but I think it fucks with your head a little bit.
BS: I think for me it is a memorial of a certain kind, in that I feel an urge that these things be remembered, and soon they cannot be remembered by the people who lived through it. But they can be remembered by us. I think it’s both things. SM: I suppose for me it has much more motion. The way I see a memorial is a kind of pause. Ours is living. Occupied City is out in UK cinemas now.