“Silk” screenwriter Peter Moffat is adapting Jonathan Freedland’s non-fiction book “The Escape Artist,” which tells the true story of two Jews who escaped from Auschwitz.
Margery Bone’s Bonafide Films has secured the rights to Freedland’s book, which is set to be made into a high-end limited series. Bonafide, who have a development and distribution deal with BBC Studios, recently produced Nicôle Lecky’s BAFTA-winning “Mood.”
“The Escape Artist” centers around nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba, a Slovakian Jew who manages to escape Auschwitz alongside fellow internee Fred Wetzler, and warn the world about what was happening. Their actions saved the lives of at least 200,000 Jews who were facing immediate deportation from Budapest to the world’s most notorious death camp.
“This is a story of how human beings can be pushed to the outer limits, and yet still somehow endure,” said Freeland. “How the actions of one individual, even a teenage boy,...
Margery Bone’s Bonafide Films has secured the rights to Freedland’s book, which is set to be made into a high-end limited series. Bonafide, who have a development and distribution deal with BBC Studios, recently produced Nicôle Lecky’s BAFTA-winning “Mood.”
“The Escape Artist” centers around nineteen-year-old Rudolf Vrba, a Slovakian Jew who manages to escape Auschwitz alongside fellow internee Fred Wetzler, and warn the world about what was happening. Their actions saved the lives of at least 200,000 Jews who were facing immediate deportation from Budapest to the world’s most notorious death camp.
“This is a story of how human beings can be pushed to the outer limits, and yet still somehow endure,” said Freeland. “How the actions of one individual, even a teenage boy,...
- 7/13/2023
- by K.J. Yossman
- Variety Film + TV
Peter Moffat is forging a TV adaptation of UK journalist Jonathan Freedland’s The Escape Artist with Mood production outfit Bonafide Films.
The Your Honor and Criminal Justice BAFTA winner is onboard to write the show telling the astonishing, true-life story of how Rudolf Vrba, a 19-year-old Slovakian Jew, along with fellow inmate Fred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz to warn the world about the Holocaust. The pair’s report led to the saving of 200,000 Budapest Jews from immediate deportation to Auschwitz. The project is not yet attached to a network and Bonafide has secured rights for TV.
Freedland is a highly-regarded British journalist who mainly writes on politics and international affairs for The Guardian but has also penned numerous works of fiction, some of which are under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.
Margery Bone’s London-based Bonafide has previously worked with Moffat on BBC drama The Last Post, which starred Jessie Buckley...
The Your Honor and Criminal Justice BAFTA winner is onboard to write the show telling the astonishing, true-life story of how Rudolf Vrba, a 19-year-old Slovakian Jew, along with fellow inmate Fred Wetzler, escaped from Auschwitz to warn the world about the Holocaust. The pair’s report led to the saving of 200,000 Budapest Jews from immediate deportation to Auschwitz. The project is not yet attached to a network and Bonafide has secured rights for TV.
Freedland is a highly-regarded British journalist who mainly writes on politics and international affairs for The Guardian but has also penned numerous works of fiction, some of which are under the pseudonym Sam Bourne.
Margery Bone’s London-based Bonafide has previously worked with Moffat on BBC drama The Last Post, which starred Jessie Buckley...
- 7/13/2023
- by Max Goldbart
- Deadline Film + TV
The trouble with unimaginable horror is precisely that: It cannot be imagined. For Alfred Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba, two Slovakian Jews who escaped from Auschwitz in 1944 to bring evidence of the systematic genocide within the camp, the hardest part of issuing The Vrba-Wetzler Report was simply being believed. Director Peter Bebjak’s “The Auschwitz Report,” Slovakia’s official entry to the international feature category in last year’s Academy Awards, measures the immense gulf between the authors’ harrowing experiences and a reception that was far more muted and perplexed than they anticipated. The unrelenting brutality of the film’s scenes at Auschwitz are a reminder that people sometimes need to be shaken from their complacent assumptions and realize the atrocities that human beings are capable of committing against other human beings.
Bebjak wants to ensure that viewers never forget what happened either, and so his monochromatic images, drained of color and hope,...
Bebjak wants to ensure that viewers never forget what happened either, and so his monochromatic images, drained of color and hope,...
- 9/22/2021
- by Scott Tobias
- Variety Film + TV
Two prisoners at the extermination camp make a perilous bid for freedom in an intense, disturbing Holocaust story based on real events
In 1944, two Jewish Slovaks, Rudolf Vrba (Peter Ondrejička) and Alfred Wetzler (Noel Czuczor), both of them prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, hide in some wooden pallets and wait for a moment to escape. Carrying documents that will prove what is really happening in the extermination camp, they manage to make it through the fence and into the forest, an escape that precious few managed. Meanwhile, those who stayed behind, some of whom risked their lives to help Vrba and Wetzler escape, are cruelly punished by the camp guards.
This dramatised account of a true story plays like a grim high-stakes thriller as we root for the two men to make it over the border. Their names may be unfamiliar, but even for those who know about the Auschwitz Protocols – a...
In 1944, two Jewish Slovaks, Rudolf Vrba (Peter Ondrejička) and Alfred Wetzler (Noel Czuczor), both of them prisoners at Auschwitz-Birkenau, hide in some wooden pallets and wait for a moment to escape. Carrying documents that will prove what is really happening in the extermination camp, they manage to make it through the fence and into the forest, an escape that precious few managed. Meanwhile, those who stayed behind, some of whom risked their lives to help Vrba and Wetzler escape, are cruelly punished by the camp guards.
This dramatised account of a true story plays like a grim high-stakes thriller as we root for the two men to make it over the border. Their names may be unfamiliar, but even for those who know about the Auschwitz Protocols – a...
- 5/19/2021
- by Leslie Felperin
- The Guardian - Film News
The Auschwitz Report, Slovakia’s contender for the International Feature Oscar, tells the true story of two Slovakian Jews who escape Auschwitz in a bid to tell the world about the Nazi atrocities taking place in the concentration camp.
Based on the book Escape From Hell by one of the runaways, Alfréd Wetzler, the film has been realized in uncompromising detail by director Peter Bebjak. It pictures the brutal reality of everyday life in the early days of Auschwitz, the sacrifices made to alert allies to the horrors, and the crushing realization that the world was not quite ready to hear about what was taking place behind the barbed wire.
Bebjak tells Deadline during the film’s Contenders International panel that he wanted to tell Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba’s story to remind the world that past mistakes should not be repeated at a time when populism is on the march.
Based on the book Escape From Hell by one of the runaways, Alfréd Wetzler, the film has been realized in uncompromising detail by director Peter Bebjak. It pictures the brutal reality of everyday life in the early days of Auschwitz, the sacrifices made to alert allies to the horrors, and the crushing realization that the world was not quite ready to hear about what was taking place behind the barbed wire.
Bebjak tells Deadline during the film’s Contenders International panel that he wanted to tell Wetzler and Rudolf Vrba’s story to remind the world that past mistakes should not be repeated at a time when populism is on the march.
- 1/9/2021
- by Jake Kanter
- Deadline Film + TV
Samuel Goldwyn Films has obtained U.S. rights to Peter Bebjak’s historical drama The Auschwitz Report, which was selected as Slovakia’s contender for Best International Feature Film for the 93rd Oscars. The company is planning a release for sometime next year.
The pic, which is Bebjak’s second film chosen as Slovakia’s official entry, is a true story of two imprisoned Slovak Jewish men, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler. Risking certain death, the two orchestrate a meticulous report of Nazi operations before escaping from Auschwitz to reveal the long-denied truth to the world. What Wetzler and Vrba come home to, however, is the agonizing realization that even the truth may not be enough.
Noel Czuczor, Peter Onderjička and John Hannah star. Bebjak co-wrote the screenplay with Jozef Paštéka and Tomáš Bombík. Producers are Natália Rau Guzinkiewiczová, Rasťo Šesták and Bebjak.
The deal was handled by Dirk Schürhoff,...
The pic, which is Bebjak’s second film chosen as Slovakia’s official entry, is a true story of two imprisoned Slovak Jewish men, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler. Risking certain death, the two orchestrate a meticulous report of Nazi operations before escaping from Auschwitz to reveal the long-denied truth to the world. What Wetzler and Vrba come home to, however, is the agonizing realization that even the truth may not be enough.
Noel Czuczor, Peter Onderjička and John Hannah star. Bebjak co-wrote the screenplay with Jozef Paštéka and Tomáš Bombík. Producers are Natália Rau Guzinkiewiczová, Rasťo Šesták and Bebjak.
The deal was handled by Dirk Schürhoff,...
- 12/18/2020
- by Amanda N'Duka
- Deadline Film + TV
Samuel Goldwyn Films has acquired the U.S. distribution rights for “The Auschwitz Report,” Slovakia’s entry for international film to the Academy Awards.
The movie, directed by Peter Bebjak and based on Alfréd Wetzler’s novel “What Dante Did Not See,” tells the true story of two imprisoned Slovak Jewish men, Rudolf Vrba and Wetzler, who escape Auschwitz and risk their lives to meticulously report the horrific reality of Nazi operations to the world.
“The film is both heartbreaking and inspiring,” said Peter Goldwyn of Samuel Goldwyn Films. “Peter Bebjak crafted this film with great care both towards historical accuracy and the subjective experience of its central characters. The result is a gripping, visually inventive experience. We are honored to be part of the story of this important film.”
Goldwyn, which also is distributing Danish entry “Another Round,” plans to release the film in the U.S. in 2021.
“I...
The movie, directed by Peter Bebjak and based on Alfréd Wetzler’s novel “What Dante Did Not See,” tells the true story of two imprisoned Slovak Jewish men, Rudolf Vrba and Wetzler, who escape Auschwitz and risk their lives to meticulously report the horrific reality of Nazi operations to the world.
“The film is both heartbreaking and inspiring,” said Peter Goldwyn of Samuel Goldwyn Films. “Peter Bebjak crafted this film with great care both towards historical accuracy and the subjective experience of its central characters. The result is a gripping, visually inventive experience. We are honored to be part of the story of this important film.”
Goldwyn, which also is distributing Danish entry “Another Round,” plans to release the film in the U.S. in 2021.
“I...
- 12/18/2020
- by Natalie Oganesyan
- Variety Film + TV
Director Peter Bebjak’s previous films include The Line, which won the best director award at the 2017 Karlovy Vary Film Festival.
Munich-based Beta Cinema has taken worldwide sales rights to The Auschwitz Report, a new film about the two Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who escaped from the concentration camp and delivered a meticulous report about the systematic genocide to the outside world.
They struggled to make people believe them but the Vrba-Wetzler Report is still credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
The project is directed by Slovakia’s Peter Bebjak, whose previous films include The Line,...
Munich-based Beta Cinema has taken worldwide sales rights to The Auschwitz Report, a new film about the two Slovak Jews, Rudolf Vrba and Alfred Wetzler, who escaped from the concentration camp and delivered a meticulous report about the systematic genocide to the outside world.
They struggled to make people believe them but the Vrba-Wetzler Report is still credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
The project is directed by Slovakia’s Peter Bebjak, whose previous films include The Line,...
- 2/21/2020
- by 57¦Geoffrey Macnab¦41¦
- ScreenDaily
Gal Gadot trained for six months prior to even beginning to shoot “Wonder Woman.” But can Conan O’Brien match her skills in 35 minutes? The talkshow host met up with Gadot at a Warner Bros. warehouse for a segment on his late-night show “Conan” to see how she trained to become the iconic superhero. According to Gadot, she did a lot of gym work and martial arts alongside her trainer Ruda Vrba Both Vrba and Gadot weren’t impressed with O’Brien — Vrba said he had “very weak legs.” Also Read: 'Wonder Woman' Female-Only Screening Has Men's Tighty-Whities...
- 5/26/2017
- by Carli Velocci
- The Wrap
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