On October 21, 1941, three activists belonging to the "Youth Battalions" of the Communist Party shot dead Lieutenant-Colonel Karl Hotz in the center of Nantes. In retaliation, Hitler immediately demanded the execution of 150 French people. In Paris, at the Kommandantur, General-in-Chief von Stülpnagel will try everything to reduce the number of executions demanded by the Führer. The officer Ernst Jünger, also a writer and philosopher, is charged by his general with noting down the events, hour by hour. In Châteaubriant, the sub-prefect is responsible for designating the hostages from the Choiseul camp who will be shot. Among the prisoners, the young Guy Môquet. The Sea at Dawn is the story of the few hours which separate the attack from the execution of the French hostages, puppets suspended from the strings of a merciless machine which only works through obedience.
Guy Môquet, 17, was arrested in 1940 and then, with other political prisoners, shot in 1941 by the Germans in retaliation for an attack; his will: a farewell letter to his family, written just before his execution.
Release date: October 14, 2011 (Germany)
Director: Volker Schlondorff
With Léo-Paul Salmain, Ulrich Matthes, Christopher Buchholz