NUREMBERG Official U.S. War Department documentary of Nuremberg trial, restored from “lost” 1948 original film. June 3, 2011

Sandra Schulberg, daughter of the original filmmaker and producer of the restoration, will speak to audiences on Friday, June 3 at 5:15pm, 7:30pm and 9:45pm and at all shows on Saturday, June 4 and Sunday, June 5: 12:45, 3:00, 5:15, 7:30, & 9:45.

NUREMBERG was originally written and directed in 1948 by Stuart Schulberg, a veteran of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Field Photographic Branch/War Crimes Unit that was charged... in 1945 with locating Nazi film evidence to be shown in the courtroom at Nuremberg. The film shows how the international prosecutors built their case against the top Nazi war criminals using the Nazis’ own films and records. The trial established the foundation for all subsequent trials for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Buffeted by conflicting policy objectives, the film was shelved and over the years the original picture negative and sound elements were lost or destroyed.

In 2003, Stuart Schulberg’s children discovered numerous documents about the making of NUREMBERG and the controversy surrounding it in their mother’s apartment. A year later, daughter Sandra Schulberg began to inventory the documents and invited two Holocaust scholars to examine them: Ronny Loewy (of the Deutsches Filminstitut) and Raye Farr (Director, Steven Spielberg Film & Video Archive, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum). It became clear they were extremely important and previously unknown. She began a five-year effort to assemble a team and raise the necessary funds to restore the film.

Sandra Schulberg and Josh Waletzky created a new 35mm negative and re-constructed the soundtrack using original sound from the trial. The Schulberg/Waletzky restoration allows audiences to hear Justice Robert H. Jackson’s famous opening and closing statements to the Tribunal, and the testimony of German defendants and their defense attorneys – all in their own voices – as well as bits from the English, Russian and French prosecutors. Now, more than 60 years later, the newly restored film can be seen and properly heard for the first time. Narrated by Liev Schrieber.

Landmark’s Nuart Theatre, 11272 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, 310-281-8223
Tickets are $10.50 for general admission and $8.00 for seniors, students, and children
Showtimes: Fri-Sun at 12:45, 3:00, 5:15, 7:30, & 9:45; Mon – Thurs at 5:15, 7:30 & 9:45

“Haunting and vivid. What this documentary shows, from an unmediated, eyewitness perspective, is how a vital and indispensable principle of humanity was restored.” – A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“****. Critic’s Pick. Another mesmerizing lesson in how even the most cynical propaganda can be recast in the service of truth. "Nuremberg" couldn't be more of the moment. Something of a minor miracle. –Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

“CRITICS’ PICK! RIVETING. More powerful than any fictional courtroom drama could hope to be.” – Bilge Ebiri, New York magazine

“*** ½ * POWERFUL. This long-overdue restoration…offer(s) an enduring lesson for mankind. A definitive rebuke to all Holocaust deniers.” – Lou Lumenick, New York Post

“Compact and devastating. A startling example of postwar global cooperation. An intensely riveting 78-minute portrait that tries to capture both the flavor of a dramatic 10-month trial -- one of the 20th century's first and biggest media spectacles -- and the horrific history that provoked it.” – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com