Why This Film
Hollywood, History and the Holocaust
Historically, if a filmmaker allies himself with history, he cannot go wrong. In the 52 years since Shelley Winters won a supporting actress Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank, there have been 20 nominated features, including foreign, language and documentary films that treated the Holocaust from the perspective of its victims. In later years and currently there has been and is a resurgence of interest into how this could happen and the German perspective has been and continues to be investigated. We found that this story must also be told, it is a little known side of the horrors of the war trapping hundreds of thousands of Germans and their families between a Nazi state seeking to destroy them and their hope to survive a war by hiding in the most unlikely place; the German military, many were caught and sent to camps in spite of either forging papers or having served with distinction hoping to be spared. Many soon found themselves horrified as caught between survival and death; forced to witness fellow Jews being killed while unable to aid them, desperately seeking to rescue their families by exposing themselves at the deportations in uniform to plead the case for their families.
Ever since Western civilization have viewed the Holocaust as a timeless defining trauma, an everlasting cultural imprint of victimization, the perennial appeal of the Nazi villains and an American desire to have entertainment mixed with education has always been meet with great approval from the public, film critics and the high end festival circuit alike.
Schindler's List was no anomaly: 11 films were nominated before Spielberg's and 10 afterward. Judgment at Nuremberg won lead actor and adapted screenplay for 1961; Shop on Main Street, and the Garden of the Finzi-Continis, directed by Vittorio De Sica, won foreign-language film in 1966 and 1972 respectively. Two classics of “light” Holocaust films as, The Producers took home the trophy for original screenplay for 1968, while 1972's "Cabaret" collected eight Oscars. Genocide won for documentary, three years after NBC presented the miniseries Holocaust and four years before the epic documentary feature Shoah; Meryl Streep received her second Oscar for 1982's Sophie's Choice. In 1988, Marcel Ophüls, whose documentary about Nazi-occupied France the Sorrow and the Pity lost in 1971 to The Hellstrom Chronicles then won with his account of Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie, Hotel Terminus.
In the wake of Schindler's List, a Holocaust nomination in the documentary category was near obligatory: Anne Frank Remembered won for 1995, The Long Way Home for 1997, The Last Days for 1998 and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kinder Transport for 2000. This year Oscar wins for the movie Son of Saul is a reminder that this topic will never disappear from the history books of Hollywood and deservingly so. This most horrendous time in history must and should never be forgotten, nor will it be by the diligence of filmmakers.
Listed are some of the many noteworthy films centering on the holocaust and their awards won how much the films have grossed, it is a solid indication of the fiscal viability of this project. It is certainly documented that well made films about this terrible time have never lost out to its investors, nor have they been neglected by the film going public or the various film award committees the world over.
It may at first seem unbalanced to compare a film with a modest budget of 2.5 million to larger films such as Shindler’s List and Defiance however we feel this is quite merited in the light of those films relative low budgets of 22 and 33 million respectively and as the vast majority of nominated films in this genre were at modest budgets of 3 – 7 million dollars. This topic will attract extremely talented actors who are willing to work at a lower than normal rate compared to their name value due to the importance of these stories told.
And we feel with the previous World War Two film the producer and Directors have made in the past and the assets thus amassed it will be possible to produce an amazing feature drama. It is important to note that the cinematographer and editor for the film will be found among the group of people who have excelled in the past from similar style films to ensure the film’s success.
We are especially aiming to hire editors and Cinematographer among the talented group who has before proved themselves in one of the above mentions movies.
Hollywood, History and the Holocaust
Historically, if a filmmaker allies himself with history, he cannot go wrong. In the 52 years since Shelley Winters won a supporting actress Oscar for The Diary of Anne Frank, there have been 20 nominated features, including foreign, language and documentary films that treated the Holocaust from the perspective of its victims. In later years and currently there has been and is a resurgence of interest into how this could happen and the German perspective has been and continues to be investigated. We found that this story must also be told, it is a little known side of the horrors of the war trapping hundreds of thousands of Germans and their families between a Nazi state seeking to destroy them and their hope to survive a war by hiding in the most unlikely place; the German military, many were caught and sent to camps in spite of either forging papers or having served with distinction hoping to be spared. Many soon found themselves horrified as caught between survival and death; forced to witness fellow Jews being killed while unable to aid them, desperately seeking to rescue their families by exposing themselves at the deportations in uniform to plead the case for their families.
Ever since Western civilization have viewed the Holocaust as a timeless defining trauma, an everlasting cultural imprint of victimization, the perennial appeal of the Nazi villains and an American desire to have entertainment mixed with education has always been meet with great approval from the public, film critics and the high end festival circuit alike.
Schindler's List was no anomaly: 11 films were nominated before Spielberg's and 10 afterward. Judgment at Nuremberg won lead actor and adapted screenplay for 1961; Shop on Main Street, and the Garden of the Finzi-Continis, directed by Vittorio De Sica, won foreign-language film in 1966 and 1972 respectively. Two classics of “light” Holocaust films as, The Producers took home the trophy for original screenplay for 1968, while 1972's "Cabaret" collected eight Oscars. Genocide won for documentary, three years after NBC presented the miniseries Holocaust and four years before the epic documentary feature Shoah; Meryl Streep received her second Oscar for 1982's Sophie's Choice. In 1988, Marcel Ophüls, whose documentary about Nazi-occupied France the Sorrow and the Pity lost in 1971 to The Hellstrom Chronicles then won with his account of Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie, Hotel Terminus.
In the wake of Schindler's List, a Holocaust nomination in the documentary category was near obligatory: Anne Frank Remembered won for 1995, The Long Way Home for 1997, The Last Days for 1998 and Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kinder Transport for 2000. This year Oscar wins for the movie Son of Saul is a reminder that this topic will never disappear from the history books of Hollywood and deservingly so. This most horrendous time in history must and should never be forgotten, nor will it be by the diligence of filmmakers.
Listed are some of the many noteworthy films centering on the holocaust and their awards won how much the films have grossed, it is a solid indication of the fiscal viability of this project. It is certainly documented that well made films about this terrible time have never lost out to its investors, nor have they been neglected by the film going public or the various film award committees the world over.
It may at first seem unbalanced to compare a film with a modest budget of 2.5 million to larger films such as Shindler’s List and Defiance however we feel this is quite merited in the light of those films relative low budgets of 22 and 33 million respectively and as the vast majority of nominated films in this genre were at modest budgets of 3 – 7 million dollars. This topic will attract extremely talented actors who are willing to work at a lower than normal rate compared to their name value due to the importance of these stories told.
And we feel with the previous World War Two film the producer and Directors have made in the past and the assets thus amassed it will be possible to produce an amazing feature drama. It is important to note that the cinematographer and editor for the film will be found among the group of people who have excelled in the past from similar style films to ensure the film’s success.
We are especially aiming to hire editors and Cinematographer among the talented group who has before proved themselves in one of the above mentions movies.