Spike Lee is at it again! His new film, Miracle at St. Anna is hitting theaters this Friday. Based on the book written by James McBride, Miracle at St. Anna follows four black soldiers of the all-black 92nd Infantry Division who get trapped near a small Tuscan village on the Gothic Line during the Italian Campaign of World War II after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.

The story is inspired by the August 1944 Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre perpetrated by the Waffen-SS in retaliation to Italian partisan activity. There is also a reference to a sculpted head from Ponte Santa Trinita in Florence that acts as a plot device.

The film stars Derek Luke, Michael Ealy and a personal friend of mine, Laz Alonso and in Spike Lee fashion, has stirred up quite a controversy.

Excerpt from New York Magazine: Never one to soft-pedal his ambitions, Spike Lee opens his grandiosely garish World War II epic Miracle at St. Anna with an old black man watching John Wayne in The Longest Day and muttering, “We fought for this country, too.” It’s a naked declaration—a big fat cinematic placard—of Lee’s intention to reclaim not only American history but American movies and their whitewashing myths. And that’s cool. As the most prominent African-American director of all time, Lee feels entitled, perhaps even obligated, to challenge the malign neglect of the past. He was right to mouth off about Clint Eastwood’s leaving black soldiers out of Iwo Jima (although his case was blunted by having once mouthed off about Eastwood’s audacity in making a Charlie Parker biopic—Lee wants to be the keeper of his brothers’ stories). And he was canny to recognize in James McBride’s novel about the all-black 92nd Infantry Division an ideal vehicle for his Flags of Our Fathers—his The Longest Day. Lee’s canvas is impressively vast. The shock is in how coarsely he fills it in. Read more:www.newyorkmag.com

Excerpt from Philly.com article:Miracle was shot last fall, mostly on location in Tuscany, and in the fabled Cinecittà Studios in Rome – “a studio built by Mussolini,” Lee notes with no little irony. One of the hardest scenes to watch is one depicting the Nazi massacre of hundreds of villagers in the piazza of the title town, Sant’ Anna di Stazzema. “It was very difficult,” Lee says. “We shot that at the actual place where the massacre occurred. In this small village in Tuscany, where on Aug. 12, 1944, the Nazis – specifically the 16th division SS – slaughtered 560 innocent Italian civilians, made up mostly of elderly men and women, and children. Read More: www.Philly.com

Interview with Director, Spike Lee:

Interview with the actors:

Some articles/background on the film:

Winnepegsun:
http://winnipegsun.com/Entertainment/Movies/2008/09/21/6828576-sun.html

Boston Globe:
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2008/09/21/spike_lee_puts_up_a_fight/
Forwomenonline.com