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If a picture speaks a thousand words, then the power of film to convey an idea or feeling is simply boundless. Filmmakers for the Prosecution, a new documentary directed by Jean-Christophe Klotz and produced by Sandra Schulberg, examines the search for celluloid to convict the Nazis at the Nuremberg trials. Ahead of the film’s opening on Holocaust Day of Remembrance, January 27, in New York at the Dctv Firehouse Cinema courtesy of Kino Lorber, we’re pleased to exclusively premiere the first trailer.

Adapted from Sandra Schulberg’s monograph, the documentary retraces the thrilling hunt for film evidence used to convict the Nazis at the first Nuremberg Trial. The searchers were two sons of Hollywood––brothers Budd and Stuart Schulberg––serving under the command of Oss film chief John Ford. The motion pictures they presented in the courtroom became part of the official record and shape our understanding of the Holocaust to this day.

In many places and for many people, the legacy of World War II still hangs heavy. The war in both the Pacific and Europe ended by the early fall of 1945, but several of the countries involved remained caught in desperate power plays for decades afterward (some formerly Soviet block countries still are). But for many, the longest shadows cast by the war are the inexpressibly dark remembrances of the Holocaust, filled with dismayed wonder at how such a catastrophe ever happened. Philippe Sands is a lawyer and professor of international law at University College London. The author of several books, in 2012 Sands took on the task of writing about The Nuremberg Trials. In the process, he met Niklas Frank, the son of prominent Nazi governor, Hans Frank. Niklas introduced Sands to Horst von Wächter, son of Otto von Wächter, another prominent Nazi. What Sands — a Jew whose grandfather barely survived...