Filmmakers for the Prosecution

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 and Stuart Schulberg — serving 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. Seventy-five 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 by Stuart Schulberg — 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 questions about documentarians’ obligations to posterity. The film includes compelling interviews with Nuremberg experts Eli Rosenbaum, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice; Yves Beigbeder, clerk to Nuremberg Judge Henri Donnedieu de Vabres; Niklas Frank, son of defendant Hans Frank who was convicted and hanged at Nuremberg; as well as commentary by scholars Axel Fischer, Stuart Liebman, Sylvie Lindeperg, and Alexander Zoller. (Miami Jewish Film Festival)