
Together with historians Dan Panneton and Olga Gershenson, Professor of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, I discussed the three versions of this early antifascist drama.
Many viewers were not aware of many of the early treatments and asked for more film recommendations around the Holocaust and antifascism.
My personal and very partial list of feature film recommendations (+ one doc) focusses on early, (East or West) German or European, some American films around antisemitism, Holocaust, resistance, or explorations of guilt and accountability, leaving out the wave of films from the last two to three decades you have likely seen: the stellar "Son of Saul" by László Nemes, Spielberg’s "Schindler’s List", which had great impact n my youth; Tarantino’s satisfying revenge caper "Inglourious Bastards", Petzold’s enlightening duo "Phoenix" & "Transit", Schloendorff’s "Ninth Day", "Diplomacy" or "The Tin Drum", Lars Kraume’s "The People vs. Fritz Bauer" (the German Jew who brought Eichmann to justice), von Trotta’s emphatic "Hannah Arendt" (who reported on the Eichmann trial from Jerusalem), Canada’s “Sunshine” by István Szabó & Israel Horovitz and “Remember” by Atom Egoyan, or currently “The Collini Case”, written by lawyer Ferdinand von Schirach, who has dedicated his career to addressing the crimes of his grandfather, National Socialist youth leader Baldur von Schirach, and others in books about crime, guilt, dignity and terror.
An incomplete watch list of antifascist cinema:
“Night Train To Munich” (UK, 1940) by Carol Reed is often said to be the first “Holocaust” film, and while the plot shows fictional but fairly real-looking images of a concentration camp, the film is a spy thriller and does not deal with political prisoners or Jewish persecution. It was nominated for Best Writing of an Original Story at the Academy Awards 1942.
How to watch: Available on Daily Motion
“Rome, Open City” (Italy, 1945) by Roberto Rossellini
Continue reading "An Anti-fascist Film List" »