As the world reflects during International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), on the horrors perpetrated on millions KOCH Lorber Films will release to DVD a significant film dedicated to the provocative and largely unknown story of the 60-year relationship between the film industry and the atrocities of Nazi Germany. IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST, a powerful and captivating audience favorite at more than 50 film festivals around the world and the centerpiece of dozens of conferences at theaters, universities, and museums from Warsaw to Washington, will make its DVD debut on January 27 for $24.98 SRP.
Port Washington, NY – As the world reflects during International Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27), on the horrors perpetrated on millions KOCH Lorber Films will release to DVD a significant film dedicated to the provocative and largely unknown story of the 60-year relationship between the film industry and the atrocities of Nazi Germany. IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST, a powerful and captivating audience favorite at more than 50 film festivals around the world and the centerpiece of dozens of conferences at theaters, universities, and museums from Warsaw to Washington, will make its DVD debut on January 27 for $24.98 SRP.
Is it possible for a film to capture the enormity of the Holocaust? Is making a film about the Holocaust morally defensible? These are among the many questions asked in Daniel Anker’s award-winning documentary. Narrated by Oscar® winner Gene Hackman, and including clips from more than 40 movies, rare newsreels, and in-depth interviews with leading scholars and witnesses to the events portrayed, IMAGINARY WITNESS: HOLLYWOOD AND THE HOLOCAUST takes the viewer on a six-decade journey from the American ambivalence and denial during the heyday of Nazism, through the silence of the
post-war years, and into the end of the 20th century. The film explores not only the question of how an industry that sells fantasy has dealt with one of the most horrifying episodes in modern world history, but also how the movies themselves have reflected America's ever-evolving relationship to the events of that era. Prominent filmmakers such as Oscar® winners Steven Spielberg (Schindler’s List), Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, The Verdict), and Branko Lustig (Schindler’s List, “War and Remembrance”) discuss the challenges of putting the unimaginable horrors of the Holocaust on film, as does Rod Steiger, star of the 1965 drama “The Pawnbroker,” one of the first American films to focus on the psychological torment of a concentration camp survivor.
IMAGINARY WITNESS originally premiered as an Official Selection at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival, and has since received awards at the Hamptons International Film Festival (Audience Award), the Festival de Cinema Judaico De Sao Paulo (Best Documentary) and the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival (Special Jury Award). Produced for American Movie Classics (AMC), the documentary first aired in 2005, then opened in U.S. theaters in December ‘07 to an outpouring of rave reviews.
