"Shtikat Haarchion" or "Geheimsache Ghettofilm" or "A Film Unfinished" is a co-production between Germany and Israel from 2010 that resulted in this 85-minute documentary. Writer and director is Yael Hersonski and this is possibly his most known work. One reason for this may be that films about the years of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust usually attract enough viewers to keep a film from staying entirely unknown, even if you do not really deliver anything new to the subject. Of course, it's also not easy to do the latter as so many documentaries about this already exist. But luckily this one here does bring something new to the table, namely interesting information about a German propaganda film. That one was supposed to be made at the Warsaw ghetto and depict Jews as people living in the ghetto in order to convince Germans and audiences that even in the ghettos life isn't bad at all for them and maybe increase hate towards Jews even further. I am not entirely sure if this propaganda movie got made or still exists today (in fragments?), but thanks to this documentary we find out a bit about the backgrounds and circumstances of the production. I still believe it is really difficult to make a 90-minute film about a film of under an hour, so there were moments when I felt they could have been left out of this documentary piece. Anyway, it is still a good watch overall, mostly thanks to all the old footage that leaves a lasting impression and there are still some touching moments at times, even if I felt the film did not manage to make the emotional impact it tried to make, at least on me. Nonetheless, I am not surprised by all the awards recognition it received, also in the United States, even if it did not get nominated for an Oscar. I think it deserved awards recognition, but it was maybe a bit too much. If you are an English native speaker, you may want to get subtitles for this one here. Without being too enthusiastic about it (maybe also because of the subject), I recommend checking it out all in all.
Review of A Film Unfinished
