Made at the tail end of the silent era, People on Sunday is one of the first feature films to draw attention to the lives of the ordinary Berliners – a taxi driver, a shop girl – as they go about their Sunday recreation, utilizing a novel blend of fiction and documentary techniques that recalls the “city symphonies” of the 1920s. A film with an enormous influence on both the French New Wave and Italian Neo-Realism, People was a collaboration between several filmmakers who would go on to successful Hollywood careers – Robert and Curt Siodmak, Edgar Ulmer, Billy Wilder and Fred Zinneman, along with famed cinematographer Eugen Schufftan, who shot the film on a series of Sundays to accommodate the work schedules of the nonprofessional cast.