Synopsis
When Allied forces liberated the Nazi concentration camps in 1944-45, their terrible discoveries were recorded by army and newsreel cameramen, revealing for the first time the full horror of what had happened. Making use of British, Soviet and American footage, the Ministry of Information’s Sidney Bernstein (later founder of Granada Television) aimed to create a documentary that would provide lasting, undeniable evidence of the Nazis’ unspeakable crimes. He commissioned a wealth of British talent, including editor Stewart McAllister, writer and future cabinet minister Richard Crossman – and, as treatment advisor, his friend Alfred Hitchcock. Yet, despite initial support from the British and US Governments, the film was shelved, and only now, 70 years on, has it been restored and completed by Imperial War Museums under its original title "German Concentration Camps Factual Survey".
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Cast
- Helena Bonham CarterNarrator (voice)
- Jasper BrittonNarrator (German Concentration Camps Factual Survey) (voice)
- Toby HaggithSelf - Imperial War Museums
- Sidney BernsteinSelf - 1984 (archive footage)
- Alfred HitchcockSelf (archive footage)
- Billy WilderSelf (archive footage)
- George S. PattonSelf (archive footage)
Recommendations
- 100
Los Angeles Times
Night Will Fall proves a riveting, devastating, heartbreaking and deeply important film, one that you will likely never forget. - 100
The Guardian
This is an extraordinary record. But be warned. Once seen, these images cannot be unseen. - 90
Variety
Night not only conveys the almost unbelievable atrocities captured by the Russian, American and British camera teams and photographers, but also highlights the dedication of the team determined to document and disseminate this evidence and the changing policies of those in charge of postwar reconstruction. - 80
CineVue
A harrowing but necessary insight into what the first Allied troops met as they stumbled upon the nightmare of the Holocaust. - 80
Empire
As startling and bleakly compelling as you'd expect from this rare combination of director and subject. - 80
The Telegraph
Night Will Fall isn’t simply a film about the war, it documents the power of emerging technologies to reveal and publicise war crimes - something that also feels acutely relevant today. - 80
Time Out London
The original footage – devastatingly intimate; familiar yet alien – still stops us in our tracks more than six decades later. - 80
Total Film
The footage – discoveries made by the Allies in the liberated Nazi camps during 1945 – is graphic, terrible, unforgettable.
