Nachthexen
2017 · 8m · Denmark
Directed by Julie Herdichek Baltzer
Genres: biography, historical, war
Tones: contemplative, melancholic, tender
An elderly veteran recalls joining the Soviet Air Force's first all-female bombing squad in World War II. She remembers her friend Katja, their antique equipment, ostracism from male comrades, and how they earned the fearful German nickname 'Nachthexen' — the Night Witches.
Picked by Margot
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A Soviet Night Witches story told straight—competent, respectful, exactly what you'd expect, which is precisely the problem. The contrarian move would've been to interrogate the myth itself, not genuflect to it.
Baltzer situates this within a lineage of intimate war remembrance cinema, using restraint and tender framing to honor both the historical record and the fragility of memory; the film's formal clarity—its refusal of bombast—becomes its own kind of rigor.
The decision to let silence and Katja's absence do the emotional work, rather than spelling out grief through voiceover or score, is what transforms this from dutiful biography into something that actually lands.