Q&As Fri 1/27 at 7pm with Director Jean-Christophe Klotz and Holocaust film scholar Stuart Liebman moderated by Co-Producer Sandra Schulberg, Sat 1/28 at 7pm with Holocaust film scholar & filmmaker Josh Waletzky and Benn Schulberg, son of Budd Schulberg, and Sun 1/29 at 1pm with Co-Producer Sandra Schulberg
It’s the summer of 1945 at the end of World War II. Movie legend John Ford, head of the Field Photographic Branch of OSS (America’s wartime spy agency), assigns brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg to carry out a special mission. (Budd will become the Oscar-winning writer of ON THE WATERFRONT. Stuart will become the Emmy-winning producer of The Today Show). Their task — to track down German footage and photographs of Nazi atrocities in order to convict the Nazi leaders scheduled to stand trial in Nuremberg that autumn. So begins a high-stakes four-month investigation that takes the two young men across a devasted Europe in search of visual evidence of the most heinous crimes in history.
Our collective memory of the Nazi period is founded on the evidence collected by the Schulbergs and shown during the 1st Nuremberg trial. The images they presented in the courtroom are famous, but the story of the Schulbergs’ search has not been told on film until now. The inside story of their extraordinary mission comes to life through never-before-seen footage of the Schulbergs and through their private letters.
Seventy-five years after the trial, French journalist and filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz returns to the German salt mines where Budd Schulberg discovered film footage still burning and recreates the finding of secret caches described by both the brothers. By interviewing key surviving figures in the story he then unravels the mystery behind why the resulting film about the trial — NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY — was intentionally buried by the U.S. Department of War. Klotz’s riveting film also fills in the gaps of how these groundbreaking materials were sourced, and poses still-pertinent and profound questions about the process of using film to write history.
Filmmakers for the Prosecution was co-produced by Sandra Schulberg (daughter of Stuart, niece of Budd), who also appears in the film, and is adapted from her research and writing. The film premiered at the New York Jewish Film Festival.
Also screens as a double feature with NUREMBERG: ITS LESSON FOR TODAY at other showtimes.