Yael Hersonski’s powerful documentary achieves a remarkable feat through its penetrating look at another film—the now-infamous Nazi-produced film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Discovered after the war, the unfinished work, with no soundtrack, quickly became a resource for historians seeking an authentic record, despite its elaborate propagandistic construction. The later discovery of a long-missing reel complicated earlier readings, showing the manipulations of camera crews in these “everyday” scenes. Well-heeled Jews attending elegant dinners and theatricals (while callously stepping over the dead bodies of compatriots) now appeared as unwilling, but complicit, actors, alternately fearful and in denial of their looming fate.
Hersonski relentlessly screens each reel as ghetto survivors and (amazingly) one of the original cameramen recall actual events, investing the cryptic scenes with detail, complexity, and authority. Rigorous in its regard for human tragedy and the power of images, A Film Unfinished indicts both the evil and the astounding narcissism of the Nazi state.—Sundance Film Festival
Behind the scenes of an unfinished Nazi Propaganda film about the Warsaw Ghetto. Fascinating. Unsettling. Sometimes disturbing (as it should be).
The Film Society of Lincoln Center is touting The Sign of Rohmer, opening this afternoon with a screening of Eric Rohmer's debut feature
"For the first 20 or so years of its existence, the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival drew most heavily on the Israel-Germany-United States
