Shoreham Airport is once again on our cinema screens. Katy Rice writes about the latest movie, Woman in Gold.

Last summer, a war of words broke out as Shoreham Airport was draped in Nazi flags for the filming of scenes for a Hollywood movie shortly before the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

Last month, the movie, Woman in Gold, starring Helen Mirren, Ryan Reynolds and Katie Holmes, was released in cinemas, with the airport (now known as Brighton City Airport) doubling as the wartime Berlin Aiport.

Inspired by real events, the movie tells the story of one woman's journey to reclaim her heritage and seek justice for what happened to her family in the Second World War.

Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) is an elderly Jewish woman attempting to recover family treasures seized by the Nazis, among them Klimt's famous 1907 oil, silver and gold painting The Lady in Gold, a portrait of Maria’s aunt Adele Bloch-Bauer, who was friends with the artist. Maria had been a socialite in Vienna when she was forced to flee amid the Second World War, and the movie follows her now as she joins forces with young lawyer Randy Schoenberg (Ryan Reynolds) and embarks upon a legal battle that leads to the heart of the Austrian establishment and the US Supreme Court.

In the movie trailer, Maria says of the painting, “People see a masterpiece by one of Austria's finest artists. But I see a picture of my aunt, a woman who used to talk to me about life. We should be reunited with what is rightfully ours.”

After Adele’s death, Maria had been named as her beneficiary by Adele’s husband after he died, but once the Nazis seized them, the Austrian government claimed ownership.

In the trailer, Maria rails against the Nazis: “They destroyed my family, they killed my friends and they forced me to abandon the people and the places I loved. I won't let them humiliate me again.”

In real life, the painting was reportedly sold in 2006 for $135m, the most expensive at the time, to the owner of the Neue Galerie in New York City, where is has been on display ever since. The movie, produced by Harvey Weinstein and directed by Simon Curtis, also stars Daniel Brühl, who appeared in Rush, Tatiana Maslany from TV series Orphan Black, Max Irons, Charles Dance, Elizabeth McGovern and Jonathan Pryce. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, where Ryan Reynolds revealed, “I read the script just like anyone else would. I got a call one day, I was shooting down in Louisiana, and I got a call from Harvey Weinstein who said: ‘Hey Reynolds, it’s your lucky day.’ And I know it was.”

  •  Woman in Gold in cinemas now.

Shoreham on film

DUE to its listed, period buildings and facilities, Shoreham Airport has been used by film-makers seeking to portray a small town airport, or even for historical reconstructions of scenes from the 1930s onwards.

The airport has appeared in several episodes of Agatha Christie’s Poirot; "The Adventure of the Western Star", "Death in the Clouds" and "Lord Edgeware Dies". External shots of the airport were also used in the film The Da Vinci Code. The airport was used in the feature length documentary Angel Without Wings and A Dark Reflection.