After Jonathan Glazer’s Cannes, Oscar and BAFTA-winning “The Zone of Curiosity,” Daniela Volker’s “The Commandant’s Shadow” tackles the identical topic – what it was prefer to dwell subsequent door to a WWII focus camp.
Whereas Glazer’s movie was a piece of fiction, based mostly on Martin Amis’ novel, Volker’s movie is a documentary. Exploring the legacy of Auschwitz, it follows Hans-Joergen Höss, son of commandant Rudolf Höss, and grandson Kai, on an emotional journey. Their path results in a gathering with Holocaust survivor Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, often called the ‘cellist from Auschwitz,’ and her daughter Maya. It options hitherto unseen archival footage and attracts from Rudolf Höss’s autobiography, written shortly earlier than his demise.
“The Commandant’s Shadow” performed at Israel’s Docaviv competition the place it gained the Yad Vashem Award for excellent Holocaust-related documentary. It’s at present enjoying on the documentary-focused Mumbai International Film Festival the place Volker and govt producers Wendy Robbins and Sajan Raj Kurup participated in a dialogue revolving across the movie.
The movie has some India connections. Volker and Robbins met in Gwalior, central India, whereas capturing a BBC documentary. They misplaced contact for 25 years after that and reconnected for “The Commandant’s Shadow.” The movie discovered a champion in Neil Blair, recognized for producing J.Okay. Rowling’s “Unbelievable Beasts” franchise and her “C.B. Strike” collection. Kurup, an entrepreneur who owns Creativeland Studios, which not too long ago unveiled a joint venture to establish AIG India, watched a trailer for “The Commandant’s Shadow” at a fundraiser the place Volker and Robbins additionally delivered a passionate pitch for the movie.
“Everybody was moved, the emotion was palpable within the room,” Kurup stated. Kurup determined to put money into the movie on the spot.
Volker started the movie when she was approached by Maya. “I all the time felt there can’t be a survivor or perhaps a sufferer and not using a perpetrator, these tales belong collectively,” Volker stated. Throughout her analysis Volker got here throughout Höss’s autobiography and was amazed that nobody had made a documentary about it earlier than.
The home wherein the Höss household lived in Auschwitz nonetheless exists. “In ‘The Zone of Curiosity,’ Jonathan Glazer and the crew didn’t get entry to it, they constructed one other home. Daniela truly acquired into the actual home, there was a Polish household dwelling there and he or she persuaded them to allow us to movie,” Robbins stated. “Taking the son of Rudolf Höss again to his precise residence, letting him return to his bed room, the place he remembers seeing chimneys from his bed room window, which truly have been the crematoria the place his father was burning over one million folks, is definitely fairly one thing.”
“And the opposite factor is, ‘The Zone of Curiosity’ doesn’t truly point out the Holocaust. There are many very intelligent, however obscure clues about what might need been taking place over the backyard fence. However this documentary totally immerses [itself] within the horror, Daniela has discovered essentially the most extraordinary archive, a few of it unseen earlier than. So, you’re left in little doubt of what was taking place on the opposite facet of the backyard fence,” Robbins added.
Warner Bros. and HBO have acquired rights to “The Commandant’s Shadow,” and the movie is at present on theatrical launch throughout greater than 700 screens within the U.S. Volker says that, whereas the movie ends on a word of hope, there are some classes to be learnt from it.
“The Holocaust is one thing, which was so huge and and industrialized and unprecedented in historical past, that we mustn’t neglect it. One of many messages about our movie is basically, it’s a must to know the previous with a purpose to actually have the ability to overcome it,” Volker stated. “We finish our movie with a message of hope, which can also be essential – our Holocaust survivor assembly Rudolf Höss’s son and saying, ‘We now have to speak to one another,’ that may be utilized to all kinds of different battle conditions.”
