Prisoner of Paradise

Prisoner of Paradise is a 2002 documentary film directed by Malcolm Clarke and Stuart Sender, and produced as a BritishCanadianAmerican collaboration. The film tells the true story of Kurt Gerron, a GermanJewish cabaret and film actor in the 1920s and 1930s who was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in Czechoslovakia during World War II. There he was ordered to write and direct a Nazi propaganda film. In addition to gaining positive reviews, the film was nominated for Best Feature Documentary in the 2003 Academy Awards. Clarke won the Directors Guild of Canada Award he and Sender were together nominated for the 2003 Directors Guild of America Award.

Later, Gerron moved to Paris and Amsterdam in order to continue his entertainment career. He was captured by the Germans in 1943 and sent with other Jews to the Theresienstadt concentration camp located near Prague. In 1944, the Nazis promoted this as a model settlement where the Jews were being welltreated and allowed a visit from the International Red Cross, to placate the Danish government. That year the Nazis recruited Gerron to write and direct a 23minute propaganda film, The Fhrer Gives a City to the Jews. It presented the concentration camp as a wonderful place. Despite his cooperation, Gerron and his wife were subsequently included in the liquidation of the ghetto and deported to Auschwitz concentration camp, where they were both murdered.Prisoner of Paradise was produced for the Cineplex Odeon Films presentation in Canada the film is a Montral production, in association with BBC, PBS, SODEC, and the Canadian cable television specialty channel History Television. The script was written by Malcolm Clarke and the film was narrated by Ian Holm. The documentary was released theatrically on December 12, 2003. A DVD version was released on April 12, 2005. ........

Source: Wikipedia