Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (Japanese: ), also known in many European editions as Furyo (俘虜, Japanese for "prisoner of war"), is a 1983 British-Japanese wartime drama film directed by Nagisa Oshima, produced by Jeremy Thomas and starring David Bowie, Tom Conti, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Takeshi Kitano and Jack Thompson. The screenplay by Oshima with Paul Mayersberg was based on Sir Laurens van der Post's experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war during World War II as depicted in his works "The Seed and the Sower" (1963) and "The Night of the New Moon" (1970). Sakamoto also wrote
Laurens van der Hem "Eugenius-atlas" or the "Atlas Blauw-van der Hem" and is today kept at the Austrian National Library in Vienna. The "Atlas Maior" was popular in Amsterdam when it was published in installments starting in 1649 (last volume in 1673) in 11 gold-embossed volumes. To save money, collectors could purchase it plain without handpainted embellishments. However, Laurens van der Hem went a step further and ordered his maps unbound, and proceeded to have Blaeu's best professional map-finisher, Dirk Jansz van Santen, colour them by hand. The eleven volumes of Blaeu's atlas form the main body of the Van der Hem's personal copy,