Numerous contemporary feature films are working on the creation of a pan-European identity. The genre of war films has been particularly active in this context, attempting to ground the emergence of European identity as arising from the Second World War. The British-German co-production Laconia / The Sinking Of The Laconia (D / UK 2001, R. Uwe Janson) is a symptomatic example of how contemporary political discourses are often justified through an interpretation of the past. This film combines

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... e submarine film with the ship disaster film: the sea, due to its visual resolving power, allows a laboratory space to be created in which, through abstraction and symbolization of what is depicted, transformations in the politics of memory -such as the creation of a new transnational collective -become possible. Title: Submarine Movies About the Second World War: Working on an Identity of European Union in Laconia / The Sinking of the Laconia (D / UK 2001, R. Uwe Janson)