Jonathan Glazer condemns Gaza attacks as he accepts Oscar for Holocaust film
British director Jonathan Glazer has condemned Israel's ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip as he accepted an Oscar for his film about the banality of evil during the Holocaust.
The Zone Of Interest won the best international feature Oscar for the United Kingdom. The harrowing portrait of a family living in a house and garden next to a concentration camp stars German actor Christian Friedel as Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss while Sandra Huller plays his wife Hedwig.
Hoss was a long-serving Nazi officer who was widely acknowledged as one of the architects of mass extermination during the Holocaust. Much of the film follows the mundanity of family life, never venturing inside the camp, while the background sound and the billowing smoke hints at the horrors taking place over the fence.
Accepting the award, Glazer’s hands appeared to tremble as he read a pre-written speech, saying: “All of our choices were made to confront us in the present. Not to say ‘Look what they did then, rather look what we do now’.” He added: “Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst – it’s shaped all of our past and present.
“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. Whether it’s the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all are victims of this dehumanisation. How do we resist?” He was met with applause before he continued: “Alexandria… the girl who glows in the film, as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and to her resistance.”
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Jonathan Glazer accepting the award with producers James Wilson and Leonard Blavatnik (No credit)Elsewhere, Glazer's fellow British director Christopher Nolan encouraged pressure on politicians to reduce nuclear weapons as his filmed Oppenheimer scooped some major awards. Nolan said we should not despair over nuclear weapons but put pressure on politicians and leaders “to reduce the number on our planet”.
The London-born filmmaker won his first Oscar for directing the life of the “father of the atomic bomb” in epic biopic Oppenheimer. “The film ends on what I consider a dramatically necessary moment of despair, but in reality I don’t think despair is the answer to the nuclear question,” Nolan said backstage after his win.
“If you look at the work of Non-Proliferation that is being done by individuals and organisations since 1945, there has been a reduction in the number of nuclear weapons on the planet since 1967 of almost 90%. In the last few years it has gone the wrong way and it is very important that rather than despair, in reality people are promoting advocacy, they are supporting organisations who are working to pressure politicians and leaders to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on our planet.”
Nolan said it was “striking” to hear his teenage son’s thoughts on nuclear weapons when he first began the project. “He actually said to me ‘young people are not that concerned about nuclear weapons, it’s not really at the forefront of their fears’. “That did seem to me to be something that this film could to some extent help in its success with a lot of people seeing it,” the 53-year-old added.
Nolan has been previously nominated for six Academy Awards for pondering the important questions throughout his body of work, but had never won an Oscar for directing until Sunday’s ceremony. Nolan went into the ceremony as the favourite to win for Oppenheimer – for which he has been given three nods across the adapted screenplay, director and best film categories.
Accepting the directing prize, he praised his brother Jonathan Nolan, creator of Westworld, before hailing his wife and producer Emma Thomas – who picked up best picture along with him and Charles Roven – for being the “producer of all our films and all our children”.
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