Christian Carion gets his revenge
by Euan Kerr, Minnesota Public Radio
St. Paul, Minn. — During the first Christmas of World War One, a remarkable thing happened in the trenches stretching across Northern France. The troops facing each other across no-man's land set down their guns, climbed out of the trenches and joined with their enemies in celebrating the season.
The Christmas Truce is the subject of the Oscar-nominated film "Joyeux Noel," or "Merry Christmas." Director Christian Carion grew up in France and says he never heard the story, because it had been hushed up by the French authorities. They saw it as a case of mass insubordination.
Carion learned about the event through a historian who took him to archives in France, Britain, and Germany to see the evidence. Carion told Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr he knew then he had to make a film.
