Downtown Huntsville Library
Warriors and Peacemakers - An International Film Series
Monday, December 21, 2026 5:30 p.m. – 7:45 p.m.
Joyeux Noel (France, 2005)
As Christmas Eve approaches mere months after the start of World War I, soldiers from French, Scottish, and German regiments are motivated by the spirit of the season to temporarily put aside their hostility and make a brief, unofficial Christmas truce of their own.
Joyeux Noel (French for “Merry Christmas) is a fictionalized retelling of real Christmas truces that occurred at the front in 1914.
Warriors and Peacemakers – An International Film Series
This film series explores people seeking peace in times of war and violence (or vice versa): a thematically-linked pair of films deconstructing the Japanese concept of Bushido (the way of the warrior) in both the ostensible peacetime of the early 1600s and in a Japanese POW camp in Java during WWII, and a pair of French films set during each of the two World Wars – following soldiers from enemy armies forging a self-made Christmas truce in WWI and civilians and clergy enduring German-occupied France in WWII.
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December 7: Harakiri (Japan, 1963)
December 14: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Japan/UK, 1983)
December 21: Joyeux Noel (France, 2005)
December 28: Leon Morin, Priest (France, 1961)
2nd Floor Events Room -- Downtown Huntsville Public Library
Questions: askus@hmcpl.org