Oscar nominee Joseph Cedar, whose Israeli smash hit “Beaufort” is nominated for a best foreign language Oscar this year, was busy prepping an Israeli financed musical bio-pic about Hassidic singer Shlomo Karlebach, better known as “the singing rabbi”, when he temporarily shelved the project. The reason: Cedar was approached by London based producer, Rainer Grupe (”Buffalo Soldiers”) to direct a feature film about German filmmaker Veit Harlan, who was considered the official film director of the Third Reich. He was later tried for crimes against humanity but acquitted. Although he kept making movies until his death in 1965, the film, says Cedar, is “about Harlan and the production of his 1940 film ‘Jud Süss’”.
“Jud Süss” is considered one of the most atrocious, and most successful, anti-Semitic films produced in Nazi Germany, but it was directed by a filmmaker whose ex-wife was a Jew that later perished in Auschwitz.
Harlan is better known these days as the uncle of Christiane Kubrick, widow of the late Stanley Kubrick, and her brother Jan Harlan, who served as executive producer on all Kubrick films from “Barry Lyndon” to “Eyes Wide Shut”. Cedar cited Kubrick’s “Paths of Glory” as an inspiration for his own “Beaufort”.
No cast and no starting date have been announced yet for this production.