Newbury Weekly News reporter premieres new documentary Building Hitler’s Empire at Czech Embassy in London
Journalist and filmmaker Mirek Gosney premiered a new documentary at the Czech Embassy last week.
Mr Gosney, who works as the villages reporter at the Newbury Weekly News, screened his new film Building Hitler’s Empire.
The former Kennet School pupil studied for a BA in Film and History at the University of Southampton, where his passion for filmmaking began.
As NWN readers will know from his various published features, his other interest is history, specifically 20th-century history – mainly the World Wars and the Cold War.
More than 50 people attended his premiere on Friday, October 27 – raising £520 for the Ukraine Crisis Appeal organised by the British Red Cross.
The film exposes the story of the Nazis' forgotten forced and slave labour programme from the perspective of his Czech great-grandfather Miroslav Jeřábek.
By 1944, a quarter of the Nazis' entire workforce used forced labour.
The German war economy would most likely have crashed in 1941 without the millions of men, women and children the Nazis forced into servitude.
Czech deputy ambassador, Michal Strouhal, opened the event by welcoming everyone to the embassy and introducing the film.
After the screening, Mr Gosney – who has lived in Thatcham his whole life – was invited to the stage by Dr Jakub Beneš, associate professor in Central European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL).
Dr Beneš, an American-Czech, questioned Mr Gosney about his approach to making the film and took questions from audience members.
He also shared the experiences of his Czech grandfather, who the Nazis sent to Berlin as part of a forced labour contingent clearing up rubble after Allied bombing raids.
Mr Gosney thanked all involved and all that joined him at his debut premiere.
He said: “I thank everyone who has supported this important and ambitious project from its inception, but especially my brother Milos.
“It was a pleasure to reconnect with familiar faces and to meet plenty of new ones as well.
“Thank you for your questions, your feedback and for sharing your own family stories with me after the screening.”
His next screening will be at Bohemia House (74 West End Lane, London, NW6 2LX) on Friday, November 10 at 7pm.
Tickets are available at: https://shorturl.at/opN45
The film will be published on his website: www.mirek-gosney.com as three episodes each week from November 13.
Visit https://www.newburytoday.co.uk/news/nwn-reporter-s-documentary-building-hitler-s-empire-to-premi-9330254/ for an interview about how the film came about
