"Six Minutes to Midnight" is a thriller movie starring and co-written by Eddie Izzard that tells the story of a girls' school in the period leading up to World War II. It's a great example of using a small world to tell the story of a larger one
In this video, the director and a couple of others reveal how they approached the story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClKwK-ExlGI
