EXCLUSIVE: Belgian distribution and manufacturing firm Belga Movies Group is reuniting with award-winning director Jaco Van Dormael to provide The Magician of Auschwitz, which can be his first English-language characteristic in 15 years after taking pictures primarily in French.
Van Dormael will direct from a screenplay adaptation by Jacob Marx Rice of Portuguese journalist and author José António Dos Santos’ twin novels ‘The Magician of Auschwitz’ and ‘The Birkenau Scrolls’, a few Portuguese soldier, Russian woman and Jewish magician thrown collectively within the horror of Auschwitz.
Dos Santos drew the novels from genuine manuscripts written by members of the Sonderkommando through the Holocaust and located hidden close to demise camp crematoria post-liberation. They make clear the harrowing experiences of the members of particular command models composed of prisoners who had been pressured to assist run the fuel chambers and crematoria.
“Dos Santos casts a uncommon historic highlight on the delusional beliefs on which the Nazis’ racial theories had been primarily based,” says Van Dormael, explaining what him within the mission.
“The SS leaders had been fascinated by mysticism and the occult, satisfied that the Aryan race was a divine race that had come from Atlantis after six moons had fallen to Earth. The Atlanteans, a folks of supermen, had been mentioned to have unfold to Germany and Tibet. Jesus, in keeping with their story, was an Aryan persecuted by the Jews.”
“It’s these delusional beliefs that the magician of Auschwitz makes use of in his magic tips to outlive within the coronary heart of hell. The purpose of this movie is that each warfare is predicated on a fiction. A fiction should be created to designate an enemy. Fictions on which racism, nations, wars and holocausts are primarily based. Due to the invaluable manuscripts discovered buried close to the crematoria, Dos Santos, tailored right into a screenplay by Jacob Marx Rice, brings us nearer to historical past.”
The Magician of Auschwitz is because of taking pictures in Europe in early 2025. Casting is underneath method by UK casting administrators Reg Poerscout-Edgerton and Lillie Jeffrey (Argylle, King’s Man franchise, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla).
Patrick Vandenbosch and Jean-Jacques Neira are producing for Belga Studios, an affiliate firm of the Belga Movies Group.
Neira explains that Within the film adaptation, the protagonists navigate the inhumane panorama of Auschwitz, turning to magic as each a type of escapism and a supply of hope.
“Our story gives a particular tackle the theme of deception —mass deception, the deception of the viewers by way of a magician’s perspective, and in addition self-deception. It explores the incredulity and denial that folks can retreat into as a method of dealing with overwhelming atrocities,” he mentioned.
Belga Movies Group CEO Vandenbosch beforehand labored with Van Dormael on 2015 comedy-fantasy The Model New Testomony, starring Benoit Poolvoorde and Catherine Deneuve.
“We’re actually honored to collaborate with Jaco, a director whose singular method to visible storytelling units him aside,” mentioned Vandenbosch.
“As a flexible artist, he elevates a variety of topics along with his creativity, constantly exploring life’s deeper meanings by way of his characters’ journeys. His work has captivated audiences worldwide, and up to date field workplace outcomes affirm that moviegoers return to theaters for status movies directed by acclaimed skills like him.”
Van Dormael’s final English-speaking was the 2009 sci-fi fantasy Mr. No person, which starred Jared Leto and Diane Kruger and premiered in Venice.
The director made his characteristic debut in 1991 with Toto le Héros, which gained the Golden Digicam on the Cannes Movie Competition and the César for Finest International Movie. His 1996 characteristic The Eighth Day earned Daniel Auteuil and Pascal Duquenne the shared Finest Actor award on the 1996 Cannes Movie Competition.
