User Score
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A German documentary studying concepts of hell developed over time in Christianity, Judaism and Islam, often overlapping -but not in Catholicism- with purgatory. Special attention goes to 'physical' methods of torture in the afterlife, as in Dante's Inferno. Their inspiration stems partially from judicial torments, as used during the Inquisition to redeem 'Satanic' sinners, from witches and heretics to mere gay people. Also treated is hell's theological and 'educational' meaning.
Director
Status
Released
Original Language
DE
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
