The Night of the Long Knives, or the Röhm Purge called Operation Hummingbird, was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, urged on by Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler, ordered a series of political extrajudicial executions intended to consolidate his power and alleviate the concerns of the German military about the role of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung, the Nazis' paramilitary organization. Nazi propaganda presented the murders as a preventive measure against an alleged imminent coup by the SA under Röhm – the so-called Röhm Putsch; the primary instruments of Hitler's action, which carried out most of the killings, were the Schutzstaffel paramilitary force under Himmler and its Security Service and Gestapo under Reinhard Heydrich. Göring's personal police battalion took part in the killings. Many of those killed in the purge were leaders of the SA, the best-known being Röhm himself, the SA's chief of staff and one of Hitler's longtime supporters and allies.

Leading members of the leftist-leaning Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, including its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were killed, as were establishment conservatives and anti-Nazis, such as former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher and Bavarian politician Gustav Ritter von Kahr, who had suppressed Hitler's Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923. The murders of SA leaders were intended to improve the image of the Hitler government with a German public, critical of thuggish SA tactics. Hitler saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power, he wanted to conciliate leaders of the Reichswehr, the German military, who feared and despised the SA as a potential rival, in particular because of Röhm's ambition to merge the army and the SA under his own leadership. Additionally, Hitler was uncomfortable with Röhm's outspoken support for a "second revolution" to redistribute wealth. In Röhm's view, President Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as Chancellor on January 30, 1933 had brought the Nazi Party to power, but had left unfulfilled the party's larger goals.

Hitler used the purge to attack or eliminate German critics of his new regime those loyal to Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen, as well as to settle scores with old enemies. At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds, with high estimates running from 700 to 1,000. More than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested; the purge consolidated the support of the Wehrmacht for Hitler. It provided a legal grounding for the Nazi regime, as the German courts and cabinet swept aside centuries of legal prohibition against extrajudicial killings to demonstrate their loyalty to the regime; the Night of the Long Knives was a turning point for the German government. It established Hitler as the supreme administrator of justice of the German people, as he put it in his July 13 speech to the Reichstag. Before its execution, its planners sometimes referred to the purge as Hummingbird, the codeword used to send the execution squads into action on the day of the purge.

The codename for the operation appears to have been chosen arbitrarily. The phrase "Night of the Long Knives" in the German language predates the killings and refers to acts of vengeance. President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor on January 30, 1933. Over the next few months, during the so-called Gleichschaltung, Hitler dispensed with the need for the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic as a legislative body and eliminated all rival political parties in Germany, so that by the middle of 1933 the country had become a one-party state under his direction and control. Hitler did not exercise absolute power, despite his swift consolidation of political authority; as chancellor, Hitler did not command the army, which remained under the formal leadership of Hindenburg, a respected veteran field marshal. While many officers were impressed by Hitler's promises of an expanded army, a return to conscription, a more aggressive foreign policy, the army continued to guard its traditions of independence during the early years of the Nazi regime.

To a lesser extent, the Sturmabteilung, a Nazi paramilitary organization, remained somewhat autonomous within the party. The SA evolved out of the remnants of the Freikorps movement of the post-World War I years; the Freikorps were nationalistic organizations composed of disaffected and angry German combat veterans founded by the government in January 1919 to deal with the threat of a Communist revolution when it appeared that there was a lack of loyal troops. A large number of the Freikorps believed that the November Revolution had betrayed them when Germany was alleged to be on the verge of victory in 1918. Hence, the Freikorps were in opposition to the new Weimar Republic, born as a result of the November Revolution, whose founders were contemptuously called "November criminals". Captain Ernst Röhm of the Reichswehr served as the liaison with the Bavarian Freikorps. Röhm was given the nickname "The Machine Gun King of Bavaria" in the early 1920s, since he was responsible for storing and issuing illegal machine guns to the Bavarian Freikorps units.

Röhm left the Reichswehr in 1923 and became commander of the SA. During the 1920s and 1930s, the SA functioned as a private militia used by Hitler to intimidate rivals and disrupt the meetings of competing political parties those of the Social Democrats and the Communists. Known as the "brownshirts" or "stormtroopers," the SA became notorious for t

The Brest European Short Film Festival is a film festival dedicated to short films, happening every year in Brest, in the Brittany region in France. It has been organized by the Côte Ouest Association since 1987 and is open to everyone, school groups and professionals. Since 1992, films from all over Europe are competing at the festival to light and wins recognition for the viewpoint of young European filmmakers. Prizes are awarded by several jurys. Besides the official selection, several themed screenings and workshops are dedicated to the young audience. Known as the second best short film festival in France, Brest unites around 30.000 professionals and filmgoers. The 32nd edition of the festival will happen from November 7 to 12th 2017. In 1984, Brest film director Olivier Bourbeillon organizes a short film night at the Mac Orlan theater. In 1986, Gilbert Le Traon, who became director of Brittany Film Archive in 2000, joins Olivier Bourbeillon in the organization of the first edition of " Brest Short Film Festival ".

The festival lasts two nights during springtime. Five programmes and around two dozens French speaking films are screened at the Mac Orlan theater gathering an audience of around 700 people. In 1987, the newly created Association Côte Ouest takes over the organization of the event. British films enter the selection starting 1989 enabling the creation of the European competition in 1992. Starting 1995, the festival strengthens its European dimension by inviting a new European country each year and doing numerous screenings focusing on a specific country; this is how many exchanges with European cities such as Hamburg, Vila do Conde, Tampere happened. From 1999, the Estran contest helps Breton directors. In 1989, the Quartz national stage hosts for the first time the festival gathering 6,000 viewers. In 1995, celebrating its 10th anniversary, the festival gets past 17,000 viewers. In 2005, festival goers celebrate the 20th anniversary of the event. In 2013, 14,000 young audience entries are recorded.

For the 30st edition, the festival aims at 30,000 entries is six days and in 2016 around 28,000 entries are counted. Claude Zidi is the first president of the festival's jury. Among its most well-known guests, the festival hosted Joris Ivens, Michelangelo Antonioni, Mathilda May, Hilton McConnico, Hippolyte Girardot, Marion Cotillard, Sylvie Testud, Élisabeth Depardieu, Peter Mullan, Richard Bohringer, Vincent Lindon, Gérard Darmon, Caroline Loeb, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu, René Vautier, Véronique Jannot, Pascal Légitimus, François Ozon, Keren Ann and Breton artists Étienne Daho and Yelle; the festival has enabled the highlighting of numerous directors who got involved in making successful feature films such as Arnaud Desplechin, Cédric Klapisch, Éric Rochant, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Mathieu Kassovitz, François Ozon, Pascale Breton, Fred Cavayé, Gérald Hustache-Mathieu, etc. The festival is organized by the Côte Ouest Association, created in 1986; the event is part of its main missions which are the broadcasting of films mostlyshorts and image education for the young audience.

For ten years, from 1996 to 2007, Côte Ouest oversees the national Cinéville system " Un été au ciné " with outdoors screenings. The festivals aims at promoting young filmmakers both European and French as well as introducing the widest audience possible with cinema. After eight years as artistic director of the festival, Olivier Bourbeillon hands over to Gilbert Le Traon and Mirabelle Fréville; when they leave in 2001, the artistic direction becomes collective and is handled by a total of seven people. Starting 2007, selection committees watch all the submitted films. Between 2009 and 2013, the organization reaches out to Bernard Boulad to be the artistic director of the festival. From 2011 to 2015, Massimiliano Nardulli takes care of the programmation searching for emergent talents and European productions all year, he is replaced in 2016 by Arthur Lemasson. The festival only accepts fiction films for the official competition and the short films must not be over 30 minutes-long; the French competition features first films or school films only.

Around 2,000 films are submitted and 200 to 250 are screened at the festival. 70% of those films come from all over Europe and 25 to 30 European countries are represented. A total of 70 films are part of the different competitions of the festival while 40 films compete in the European section; the official competition separates European productions from French cinema. Until 2012, the " Cocotte-minute " competition screened films inferior to six minutes. Since 2013, the " OVNI " competition rewards the uniqueness and creativity of films included in a special programme. There are special screenings and themed screenings such as the "Made in Breizh", to say films produced and/or directed in Brittany. Besides the competitions, the Midnight Show section is dedicated to the genre movies, the Brest Off section presents the audience with several genres since 1993; the Panorama Animation is dedicated to European animation films. Three or four programmes are dedicated to the young audience; the festival's jury is made up of five people.

The personalities appointed come from different cinema backgrounds and they award four to five prizes. The "passeurs de courts" jury promotes short films in 39 Breton cinemas; the young jury is made up of students specialized in cinema. The press jury gathers local and national journalists, the France 2 jury is made up of professionals of France Télévisions; the Beaumarchais-SACD foundation awards a prize as well as the audience by filling out voting papers at the end of each screening. The official jury awards the " Grand prix du

Steven Kunes is an American conman and former screenwriter. He has been convicted of grand theft by false pretenses. Kunes was born in 1956 in Pennsylvania, he graduated in 1974 from Neshaminy High School, attended college at New York University. Kunes' IMDb page claims writing credits for an episode of the TV show The Love Boat and a TV movie Alvin Goes Back to School, as well as various roles as an "uncredited creative consultant", but it has been edited and redacted. At various times he has claimed to have written Johnny Carson's final monologue, worked on a Harry Potter film, written the biopic Catch Me If You Can. In 2011, Kunes wrote a number of guest commentaries that were published by Santa Barbara media outlets, it was discovered that they had been plagiarized from Newsweek columns and they were removed from websites. The Turner Classic Movies database, unlike IMDb is not editable by readers, lists as Kunes' only credit being a writer for Alvin Goes Back to School. Kunes is an active member of the Writers Guild of America, the Authors Guild, the Dramatists Guild, PEN America.

Kunes is the executive producer of Over My Dead Body on Amazon Prime. Daily Variety reported on June 10, 1992, that Kunes had sold a screenplay entitled First Comes Love for $1.2 million. Four on the Four: Four Plays Uncle Jerry to Win Pick Six: Six Screenplays In 1982, Kunes attempted to sell to People magazine an interview with reclusive author J. D. Salinger, whom he claimed he had met. Salinger sued and settled the case under the conditions that Kunes was "permanently enjoined from representing by any means that he is associated with Salinger", barred from "exhibiting, transmitting or exhibiting documents, writing or statements attributed to Salinger" and "required to collect and turn over any such documents or writings for destruction"; the interview was never published. He succeeded in selling a fake interview with Jimmy Buffett to the Santa Barbara Daily Sound. Kunes was arrested on March 17, 2011, for purportedly swindling his friend, former Café Buenos Aires owner Wally Ronchietto, out of $2,000 for a nonexistent movie deal.

On April 23, 2011, Noozhawk, a Santa Barbara online publication, announced that it had removed six of Kunes' articles from its digital archives as two contained plagiarized passages. On August 27, 2011, a Santa Barbara judge issued a $200,000 bench warrant for his arrest when he failed to appear in court. Thought to have been hiding in Bucks County, he was apprehended in New Jersey less than a month later. At court, Kunes admitted to forging checks. On May 4, 2012, he was sentenced to five years in jail for felony commercial burglary and grand theft by false pretenses. A plea deal allowed for a sentence of only four years if Kunes had paid restitution to his victims, but no payments were made. In February 2013, Kunes was re-arrested, he had been serving his five-year sentence and had been approved for electronic monitoring on August 1, 2012. Kunes removed the device on August 22, 2012, mailed the device back to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Office. A photo posted on the Sheriff's Office Facebook page led to his identification at a Carpinteria cafe and his subsequent arrest.

He was released from prison in June 2015 but arrested again for violating the terms of his probation after falsely telling the Bucks County Courier Times that he was producing a Netflix series called Over My Dead Body. Media related to Steven Kunes at Wikimedia Commons Steven Kunes on IMDb