Filmmakers for the Prosecution

Synopsis

In the summer of 1945, the American authorities instructed two young soldiers, Budd and Stuart Schulberg, to gather visual evidence attesting to Nazi crimes, with a view to the trial against twenty-four dignitaries of the Third Reich which was preparing for Nuremberg. The sons of an eminent producer, already experienced in the cinema business, they must (under the aegis of filmmaker John Ford, head of the Office of Strategic Services, OSS) support the accusation of chief prosecutor Robert Jackson. In four months of high-risk investigation across devastated Europe, the Schulbergs manage to save hundreds of hours of footage, much of it taken by the Nazis, from destruction. Their editing team then worked tirelessly to complete before the opening of the trial on November 21, 1945, films exposing the atrocities perpetrated after Hitler's seizure of power, from the first pogroms to the concentration camp system, and their premeditated nature. Without the help of his brother, who has resumed his work as a screenwriter in the United States, Stuart Schulberg is then responsible, alongside the Soviet Roman Karmen, for filming the main stages of the procedure, a first in the history of justice. . They are only allowed to shoot thirty-five hours of rushes over more than ten months of hearings, but the sound recordings of the entire proceedings will allow Stuart to produce Nuremberg: its Lesson for Today, a documentary that the American authorities, facing to Cold War emergencies, finally decide to bury in 1948.