Berlin Film Festival kicks off with Nazi-jazz film "Django"
BERLIN (AP) — A French film about a jazz guitar virtuoso who struggled under the Nazis kicked off the Berlin International Film Festival on Thursday, the first of the year's major European movie fests.
The film, inspired by the story of guitarist Django Reinhardt, portrays the Gypsy musician's life in France under Nazi occupation in 1943.
While the movie starts with joyous swing music and frisky dancing in Parisian underground night clubs, it ends with a requiem composed by Reinhardt and played for the first time after France's liberation in 1945.