New Trailer for Nuremberg Trial Doc ‘Filmmakers for the Prosecution’
by Alex Billington
January 11, 2023
Source: YouTube
“The written word was absolutely inadequate to describe what had happened.” Kino Lorber has revealed an official US trailer for a documentary film called Filmmakers for the Prosecution, made by French journalist / filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz. Originally made to air on ARTE TV in France, the doc will be playing in NYC’s DCTV Firehouse Cinema later this month – for “Holocaust Day of Remembrance”. Adapted from Sandra Schulberg’s monograph, the documentary retraces the thrilling hunt for film evidence used to convict the Nazis at the first Nuremberg Trial. In four months of high-risk investigation across devastated Europe, the Schulbergs manage to save hundreds of hours of footage, much of it taken by the Nazis, from destruction. Their editing team then worked tirelessly to complete a “film” before the opening of the trial on November 21, 1945. This was then presented during the trial to showcase actual footage from the Nazis themselves to convict them. Klotz’s riveting film also fills in the gaps of how these groundbreaking materials were sourced, and it poses still-pertinent questions about filmmakers’ obligations to posterity. Take a look.
US trailer for Jean-Christophe Klotz’s doc Filmmakers for the Prosecution, from YouTube (via TFS):
Adapted from Sandra Schulberg’s monograph, Filmmakers for the Prosecution retraces the hunt for film evidence that could convict the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trial. The searchers were two sons of Hollywood – brothers Budd & Stuart Schulberg – under the command of OSS film chief John Ford. The motion pictures they presented in the courtroom became part of the official record and shape our understanding of the Holocaust to this day. 75 years after the trial, French journalist and filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz returns to the German salt mines where films lay burning, uncovers never-before-seen footage, and interviews key figures to unravel why the resulting film about the trial – Nuremberg: Its Lesson for Today (view here) by Stuart Schulberg – was intentionally buried by the U.S. Department of War. Filmmakers for the Prosecution, also known as Nuremberg: des Images pour L’histoire in French, is made by journalist / filmmaker Jean-Christophe Klotz, of many docs including John Ford: The Man Who Invented America and Killer, Trader and Psychopath previously. Kino Lorber will debut Filmmakers for the Prosecution in select US theaters (NY only at first) starting January 27th, 2023. For more details, visit their official site.
