TVREAL
Academy Award, Golden Globe and BAFTA winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Skyfall) is directing his first documentary, What They Found, for BBC Two and iPlayer.
The doc uses archive footage and firsthand testimonies to tell the story of two members of the British Army’s Film and Photographic Unit who accompanied the troops liberating Bergen-Belsen at the end of World War II. The film is due to air in April to mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation.
What They Found is being produced by U.S.-U.K. documentary production company Lightbox, co-founded by Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn, in association with Mendes and Pippa Harris’s Neal Street Productions and Imperial War Museums.
All3Media International is the worldwide distribution partner.
Mendes said: “Using only the voices and footage shot by two British army cameramen during the latter stages of the Second World War, I hope this documentary gives a unique perspective on the discovery of the horrors of Belsen and the reality of the Holocaust.”
Simon Young, head of commissioning for history at the BBC, said: “In April 1945, BBC Radio broadcast a horrifying eyewitness report from Bergen-Belsen. There could be no more fitting way to mark the anniversary of the liberation than by working with Sam Mendes and his team to create a chilling vision of what the liberators found. It has been an honor to collaborate with the Imperial War Museum, Lightbox and Neal Street on this unique project.”
Lightbox’s Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn, producers on the film, added: “The last survivors and witnesses to the Nazi atrocities at Bergen-Belsen and elsewhere sadly won’t be with us for much longer. Through making What They Found, Sam Mendes has created a powerful and undeniable record of these events at a time when surveys show that more and more young people aren’t aware of the Holocaust and its veracity is being debated or denied in ever-increasing numbers.”
Dr. James Bulgin, Imperial War Museums’ head of public history and curatorial expert on the Holocaust, said: “The sights captured by the AFPU cameramen who were present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen have left an indelible mark on the world. What They Found uses IWM’s collections to give those scenes critical context, describing them from the unique perspective of those who witnessed them firsthand. The film is a searing and timely reminder that each person caught up in this terrible history experienced it as an individual.”
