Max Pearson

The Second World War provided the backdrop to many movies which have left their mark on the history of cinema.

Among them, Casablanca.

It premiered on the 26th of November 1942.

It went on to become one of the most recognisable and quoted films ever made in Hollywood.

It was written by the screenwriting brothers Julius and Philip Epstein.

Leslie Epstein was Julius' son.

He died last year, but as another example of the importance of oral history, he had told Louis-Hannot O'Mara in 2024 about the challenges involved in the making of an all-time classic.

I just sometimes wonder if it's worth all this.

You might as well question why we breathe.

If we stop breathing, we'll die.

If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die.

And how it has lasted.

The late Leslie Epstein was speaking to Louis Hanit Omara from Embra Productions in 2024 about the making of the Hollywood classic Casablanca.

Our final feature film of this week is a story about a fairy tale, but it's probably not one you'd tell your children.

It intertwines the world of a child's fantasy with the backdrop of the brutality of Franco's fascist Spain in the aftermath of the country's civil war.

It's a movie that took the world by storm in 2006, as Tim O'Callaghan discovers.

In a dark time when hope was bleak, there lived a young girl whose only escape was in a legend.

That was Ivana Baquero talking to Tim O'Callaghan about starring in the Spanish-language film Pan's Labyrinth when she was just 11 years old.

Our final story from the past this week shifts the focus away from cinema, but onto a group of women who perhaps should feature in a film of their own one day.

This is our sporting witness.