Five-part "Cinemax Reel Life" Holocaust Documentary Series Broken Silence to Debut Exclusively on Cinemax

Tue, 04/09/2002 - 12:00am

Broken Silence, a “CINEMAX Reel Life” series of five documentary films by distinguished international directors, will debut on CINEMAX on five consecutive nights next April 15-19. This unique event is presented by Steven Spielberg and Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation and produced by Academy Award Winning documentary filmmaker James Moll (the Oscar-winning HBO documentary “The Last Days”), and will debut in conjunction with Holocaust Remembrance Day, Yom Hashoah.

“The Broken Silence series of five foreign-language documentaries is an extremely important step in the Shoah Foundation’s mission of worldwide tolerance education,” notes Spielberg. “We are grateful that CINEMAX shares our commitment to creating a more tolerant world through the public distribution of this significant series of documentaries.”

Each director worked with Shoah Foundation researchers and historians to create a documentary about the Holocaust that would resonate most effectively in his own country, language and culture. Poland’s Andrzej Wajda (recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) directed I REMEMBER. Luis Puenzo (the Academy Award-winning “The Official Story”) directed SOME WHO LIVED. The Czech Republic’s Vojtech Jasny, who fought as a partisan after the Nazis deported his father to Auschwitz, directed HELL ON EARTH. Russia’s Pavel Chukhraj (the Academy Award-nominated “The Thief”) directed CHILDREN FROM THE ABYSS. Up-and-coming Hungarian filmmaker Janos Szasz, son of two Holocaust survivors, directed EYES OF THE HOLOCAUST.

Broken Silence is a key part a global effort to increase awareness of the Holocaust as a means of countering the devastating impact of intolerance on our world. Initiated by Shoah Foundation founder and chairman Steven Spielberg, the project represents an unprecedented response to the many demands of educators and community leaders around the world who are struggling to confront Holocaust denial, racial hatred, and wars of “ethnic cleansing.”