A Film Unfinished
Stikat Haarchiyon
Yael Hersonski / Israel / 2010 / 89 min.
Long after the Second World War ended, four reels of film were found in a Nazi safe in a German mountain retreat. Simply labelled "Ghetto", this film contained footage of everyday life in the Warsaw Ghetto, which was often ingeniously staged so that it could be used as anti-Jewish Nazi propaganda. Israeli director Yael Hersonski decided to contrast this footage with a real picture of life in the Warsaw Ghetto, where almost half a million Polish Jews were trying to eke out a living on an area of just four square kilometres by the end of 1941. Using daily records as well as the recollections of several survivors today, this documentary clarifies the staged footage in which rich Jews hurry past the pitiful corpses of their co-religionists to eat at luxury restaurants where they quaff champagne and eat the finest delicacies. Using an interview with German cameraman Willy Wist, who shot the footage, it examines the way in which German Nazi filmmakers manipulated reality at the time. Masterfully compiled with several powerful moments, this film won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.