The film The Zone of Interest won the Oscar for Best International Film this year. It is set in a home of a high-ranking Nazi official near the Auschwitz death camp where a million Jews were systematically murdered during the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust resulted in the murder of millions of Jews and others throughout Europe, people the Nazis dehumanized and branded as a threat to society.
In accepting the Oscar, the film’s director, Jonathan Glazer, said that “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present. Not to say, ‘look what they did then,’ rather ‘look what we do now.’ Our film shows where dehumanization leads at its worst. It shaped all of our past and present.”
He went on to say: “Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people…” At that point, he was interrupted by applause by many in the audience. He continued, “…whether the victims of October 7 in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?”
And Glazer dedicated his acceptance to a Polish woman who resisted the Nazi Holocaust.
Watch his statement here:
The film is playing in theaters and can be downloaded in streaming platforms.