Press Releases
SUNKEN ROADS Three Generations After D-Day


| First Run Features presents the Streaming, Blu ray and DVD premiere of Charlotte Juergens’s new documentary Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day beginning May 17, 2022. Don McCarthy was 20 years old on D-Day, when his infantry division landed on Omaha Beach. Don and the other veterans who survived D-Day will someday soon have passed into memory and legend. This realization inspires 20-year-old filmmaker Charlotte Juergens to join Don and seven other D-Day vets on a journey to France – a commemorative pilgrimage to Omaha Beach for the 70th anniversary of the invasion. The vets come to see Charlotte as a granddaughter, trusting her with their stories as they confront the trauma that still haunts them 70 years after the war. In capturing their lives, Sunken Roads offers an intergenerational perspective on D-Day, presenting the memories of 90-year-old combat veterans through the eyes of a 20-year-old woman. |
![]() ![]() |
“The film is extraordinary!”-Andrea Mitchell, MSNBC “Manages to capture an innate gentleness and twinkly-eyed mischief in all of these men…Sunken Roads brings a hugely personal touch to such a massive moment in history. It is, at times, a very emotional watch.“ -JumpCut (UK) “A disarmingly sweet film.“ -Saturday Evening Post “Juergens’ filmmaking style is classic cinema verite: the cinema of truth. There is no artifice. There are no special effects. She’s never intrusive. She lets her subjects control what the lens and microphone will discover. Their faces are iconic.“ -Niagara Gazette |
| Watch Trailer |
| Festivals & Honors |
| Winner! Outstanding Feature Documentary Normandie–World War II International Film Festival G.I. Film Festival National WWII Museum National Museum of the U.S. Air Force Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum National Museum of the U.S. Army Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival Carmarthen Bay Film Festival |
| Sunken Roads: Three Generations After D-Day Directed by Charlotte Juergens 94 minutes, color, 2019, English & French w/English subtitles Streaming on Apple TV, iTunes & Vimeo On Demand plus DVD & Blu ray availability begins May 17, 2022 DVD UPC: 7-20229-91815-2 DVD Catalog #: FRF 918152D DVD PRE-BOOK: April 26, 2022 SRP: $24.95 DVD Disc Features: 12 Bonus Scenes BLU-RAY UPC: 7-20229-91816-9 BLU-RAY Catalog #: FRF 91816-9D BLU-RAY PRE-BOOK: April 26, 2022 SRP: $29.95 BLU RAY Disc Features: 2-disc set; 20 Bonus Scenes; 5.1 Audio |


“The film is extraordinary!”


