The Claims Conference, which since 2008 has devoted a small portion of its budget to funding educational Holocaust films, provided about\u00a0$50,000 of the\u00a0“Son of Saul”\u00a0budget.\u00a0But even that relatively small contribution was subject to \u201cserious internal debate,\u201d Schneider said.<\/p>\n
“It was a risk that paid off,” he said.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Claims Conference\u00a0receives funding requests\u00a0for about\u00a050 films a\u00a0year. One factor that helped\u00a0clinch the deal with\u00a0Nemes was the quality of a\u00a0short Holocaust film, “With a Little Patience,”\u00a0that he had made back in 2007. Another factor was the\u00a0director’s meticulous attention to historical accuracy, as demonstrated by the “Son of Saul” script.<\/p>\n
While fictional, the plot uses an accurate backdrop in telling the story of Saul Auslander, a member of the Sonderkommando, a group of Jews whom the Germans forced to work in the gas chambers.\u00a0In the film, an unemotional Auslander is seen herding transport after transport of his brethren to their deaths before becoming unhinged at the sight of a Nazi doctor suffocating a boy of 14 who had somehow survived the poison. Oblivious to the rebellion being planned around him, Auslander abuses the access that his gruesome job affords him in an attempt to bury the teenager.<\/p>\n
\u201cAuslander\u2019s story is fictional, the rest is accurate,\u201d Schneider told JTA last week in Berlin, where the Claims Conference organized the film\u2019s premiere in Germany. (The Sonderkommando at Auschwitz did stage a rebellion in October\u00a0 1944. Separately, two teenagers were murdered after surviving the gas chambers.)<\/p>\n
Whereas straightforward filming of an Auschwitz-Birkenau set would have yielded \u201ca pornography of death,\u201d as the lead actor, Geza Rohrig, said, the camera focuses on the living Sonderkommando and scenery, weaving the carnage around them into an out-of-focus but omnipresent background.<\/p>\n
Though the Claims Conference provided less than 4 percent of the total production cost of “Son of Saul,” its contribution “came in the final stages of production when we were really lacking money,”\u00a0\u201cSon of Saul\u201d producer Gabor Sipos said.<\/p>\n
Since 2008, the Claims Conference has spent a total of $2.25 million, or an average of $282,000 a year, to fund educational Holocaust films. The organization’s\u00a0total annual budget has ranged from $700 million to $870 million, with the vast majority going toward improving the quality of life for Holocaust\u00a0survivors.<\/p>\n
Of the dozens of films funded by the Claims Conference, \u201cSon of Saul\u201d is \u201cby far the most successful in terms of return on investment,\u201d Schneider said. It is the first film funded by the organization that has won a Golden Globe or been nominated for an Oscar. Among others that have received funding from the Claims Conference are the award-winning “Numbered” (2012) \u00a0and “The Decent One” (2014).<\/p>\n
The remainder of the budget for “Son of Saul” came almost entirely from the Hungarian National Film Fund. Agnes Havas, the Hungarian fund\u2019s CEO, told <\/a>the Budapest Business Journal that the film’s commercial appeal makes it\u00a0\u201cthe most successful project supported by the film fund.\u201d “Son of Saul”\u00a0is also Hungary’s first Oscars nominee since 1988.<\/p>\n But the funding from Hungary is also exposing “Son of Saul” to criticism by those opposed to the right-wing policies of the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, whose government was recently accused of downplaying Hungarian complicity in the Holocaust and relegating all the blame to Germany.<\/p>\n “I wonder if getting money from the Hungarian state is a problem for you, or you just don\u2019t mind,\u201d one critical viewer, who accused the government of anti-Semitism, said at a post-screening Q&A.<\/p>\n In replying, Sipos said the filmmakers were \u201cproud of the film fund,\u201d which they \u201chope has nothing to do with [the policies of] Hungarian government.\u201d<\/p>\n He noted that while requests for funding\u00a0\u201cSon of Saul\u201d were \u201crejected in countries that are seen to be less anti-Semitic,\u201d including France, Germany and Israel, \u201cthe Hungarian film fund decided to support us, meaning this film would not have existed if not for their help.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Share](\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\")