Murderers Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story

Director: Brian Gibson
Screenwriters: Ron Hutchinson, Abby Mann, Robin Vole

Institute History

  • 1989 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Dramatically powerful in scope, Murders Among Us: The Simon Wiesenthal Story explores, for the first time, the life of the world-renowned Nazi hunter and his lifelong commitment to bringing the perpetrators of World War II genocide to justice.

Directed by Brian Gibson (Breaking Glass) and written by award-winning screenwriters Abby Mann and Lane Slate for Home Box Office, this two-part film (presented on consecutive nights) traces Wiesenthal’s own experience of unprecedented human tragedy—the Holocaust—and his ultimate reaction to the horror of it: to track down over 1,100 war criminals, including the notorious Adolf Eichmann, and deliver them for trial.

Portrayed with astute intensity by Academy Award-winning actor Ben Kingsley, Simon Wiesenthal emerges as both a distinctive and an unsung hero. After he and his wife miraculously survived the Mauthausen death camp (where eighty-nine members of their family died), Wiesenthal struggled to make sense of the Nazi atrocities for himself, his family and, eventually, the world community. His continuing battle against monstrous evil is as timely as it is historic, and as disturbing as it is inspiring.

Screening Details

Credits

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