A Film Unfinished

This film seeks the truth behind one of the most mysterious Nazi propaganda films ever shot inside the Warsaw ghetto. A rough draft of a silent film which juxtaposes meticulously staged scenes of Jews enjoying a life of luxury in the ghetto with other, chilling images that required no staging at all. Ironically, after the War, filmmakers and museums used bits and pieces from the film as objective, general illustrations of the narratives collected from survivors and written documents. Few people were aware of the cynical manner in which these images were conceived and the true, yet inconceivable witness they bear. The cinematic deception was forgotten and the black and white images remained engraved in memory as historical truth.

The film interweaves diary entries written by ghetto inhabitants during the filming, the testimonies of living survivors who still remember the filming, and for the first time, a rare interrogation protocol of one of the German cameramen, providing testimony of his role in the making of the film. By juxtaposing the filmed scenes with its behind-the-scenes' layered reality, A Film Unfinished shakes our uncritical trust in the photographic image and the way we perceive the historical past.