UK Premiere: A Film Unfinished

Dir. Yael Hersonski I Germany/Israel I 2009 I 88 mins I German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, English with English subtitles

Yael Hersonski’s haunting visual indictment masterfully deconstructs the now infamous unfinished Nazi propaganda film about Jewish life in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Discovered years after the war, without a soundtrack, the film has become a resource for historians and documentary filmmakers studying the Holocaust. Ironically, the film is entirely a Nazi fabrication of ghetto life where well-dressed Jews smile as they walk indifferently past the dead bodies of compatriots on the street. So wherein lies the truth?

Hersonski screens each of the four reels for survivors who were in the ghetto at the time, scrutinizing each skewed and horrific scene as they recall actual events. These remembrances are layered with powerful testimonials from the original SS cameraman and a guilt-ridden Jewish commander who reveals the manipulations behind each deception. While the Nazis were innovators of propaganda, A Film Unfinished cuts through the film’s contortions and never loses sight of the truth.

Followed by a panel discussion with:

Suzanne Bardgett, who led the team which created the Holocaust Exhibition at the Imperial War Museum and is now the IWM’s Head of Research

Dr Daniel Wildmann, a historian and film scholar, Deputy Director at the Leo Baeck Institute London.

Chaired by Luke Holland (Dir. Good Morning Mr Hitler, I Was a Slave Labourer), a documentary filmmaker with a particular interest in the use of filmed Third Reich testimonies, in research, education and memorialisation.

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