We haven’t had a proper feature film from filmmaker Jonathan Glazer (“Sexy Beast”) since his gritty sci-fi thriller “Under The Skin” from 2013. That acclaimed film starred Scarlett Johansson as a seductive alien in human form, kidnapping and killing men in Scotland by using her feminine charms to lure them at night. First announced in 2018, Glazer’s next project is a long-in-the-works Holocaust drama at A24 Films based on the 2014 novel “The Zone of Interest” by author Martin Amis.
It’s been years since we’ve heard any details about the film—other than it was a project in the works—and now we may have an idea of what the film’s cast will look like. Vulture and New York Times contributor Sean L. Malin recently reported that German actors Sandra Hüller (“Toni Erdmann”) and Christian Friedel (“Babylon Berlin”) have lead roles in the Holocaust drama that is currently in the post-production stage. Also, he alludes to a potential festival run in 2023 before a theatrical release which could mean something like the Cannes Film Festival in May. We can independently say we’ve heard the cinematographer and editor news— Lukasz Zal acting as the DP and Paul Watts as editing—is true, which lends extra credence to the overall report.
Set in Auschwitz, the book tells the story of a Nazi officer who has become enamored with the camp commandant’s wife, Hannah. The story is told by three narrators: Angelus Thomsen, the officer; Paul Doll, the commandant; and Szmul Zacharias, a Jewish Sonderkommando. However, it also explores the brutal horrors of the Nazi camp and isn’t just a tale of romance, indeed to be controversial given our current climate, rise in Nazism, and antisemitism.
The Holocaust film has become a bit of a passion project for the Jewish filmmaker and has taken him years to complete. So, with that in mind, we can’t wait to hear some official word about the project in the coming months, including when and where audiences will be able to see it first.