Dan Cruickshank's Warsaw, Resurrecting History (2015)

Dan Cruickshank - art historian and BBC television presenter - returns to his childhood home of Warsaw (Poland) for the first time in almost 60 years. In a personal and moving film, he recalls his boyhood memories to explore the memories of the city and the memories of its people. The Nazis had razed Warsaw to the ground, but after the war the people fought hard to bring their city back from the dead in one of the greatest reconstruction jobs in history. As a boy, Cruickshank lived in the rebuilt old town and it inspired his passion for architecture and made him the man he is today.
Combining autobiography with architectural criticism, the film offers a vivid illustration of how cityscapes are changing continually over time. In an era when history is once again under attack from extremism, Cruickshank presents the recreation of the lost Polish capital as an inspiration for all of us. He asks important questions about the sense and the methods of reconstruction of destroyed treasures of culture... whether "restoration" should aim to recreate the past as closely as possible, or to reinterpret the past in terms of the present...