Alfred Hitchcock’s lost Holocaust documentary comes to life

Releasing at the end of this month, the movie will coincide with the 70th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation.

In 1945 Alfred Hitchcock had been commissioned by British Allied Forces to supervise a documentary which focused on the liberation of Nazi concentration camps. The project which was known as German Concentration Camps: Factual Survey foundered due to the immense political and artistic pressure it was faced with.

According to the entertainment website for Indie Wire the lost documentary is finally going to reach television screen due to the efforts of director, Brett Ratner.

The director of the Rush Hour series became the unlikely producer for the project. The documentary which was shot by specially trained soldiers aimed to highlight the atrocities of the Allied forces in prison camps. But before the project could be completed it was shut down by UK officials as they attempted to ally with Germany against the Soviet Union.

Ratner who became the producer for the project which is titled as Night Will Fall has used archival footage from Hitchcock’s lost documentary and eyewitness testimony to offer an exclusive, behind-the-scenes look at a film which never reached its completion.

The documentary had been commissioned after getting approval from the American and British governments with Sidney Bernstein, the chief of the Psychological Warfare Film Section of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, selecting a powerhouse team to ensure that the project materialises. The team included film editor Stewart McAllister, writers Richard Crossman and Colin Willis alongside celebrated movie director, Alfred Hitchcock stated Newsweek.

The star studded production lineup was given a timeframe of three months to complete the documentary by compiling reels of footage that had been captured by British, American and Russian cameramen.

Night Will Fall contains many graphic scenes that talk about the torture that people in the concentration camps were subjected to.

German Concentration Camps: Factual Survey to this day remains the legendary filmmaker’s only documentary feature. Despite being involved in the project for just one month he made lasting contributions such as outlining the story for the documentary and emphasising notable points like how close the concentration camps were to the picturesque German villages where several civilians resided.

Hitchcock wanted to ensure the film is as believable as possible to ensure that killings of 11 million people including six million Jewish people are never forgotten.

Night Will Fall, which has been narrated by actor Helena Bonham Carter shows how British forces equipped and trained Allied soldiers to use cameras so that they are able to capture hundreds of hours of first-hand footage.

The movie which will debut on the HBO channel towards end of this month will also coincide with the 70^th anniversary of Auschwitz’s liberation reported jspacenews.com.

The Auschwitz was among the worst concentration camps, where the Nazis had tortured and killed several Jews.

Night Will Fall, has been directed by Andre Singer who currently serves as the president of The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and has previously executive produced documentaries like The Act of Killing and Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 24^th,  2015.

Like Life & Style on Facebook, follow @ETLifeandStyle on Twitter for the latest in fashion, gossip and entertainment.