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Kirill Serebrennikov on Cannes Premiere ‘The Disappearance of Josef Mengele,’ a Portrait of Fugitive Nazi Doctor
The Russian filmmaker and provocateur returns to the Cannes Film Festival with a gripping portrait of the final years of the fugitive Nazi doctor.
Produced by Charles Gillibert at CG Cinema (“Annette”) and Ilya Stewart at Hype Studios (“Tchaikovsky’s Wife”), “The Disappearance of Josef Mengele” stars August Diehl (“A Hidden Life”) as the infamous Nazi doctor, who conducted inhumane medical experiments on prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp and was branded the “angel of death.” The audacious film is told from Mengele’s point of view and follows his years as a fugitive, as he finds sympathy and support among the South American political elite while also reciting a litany of self-serving justifications for his heinous crimes. “Disappearance” nevertheless paints a damning portrait of Mengele in his final years, as he grows increasingly paranoid, rambling and delusional — an interpretation, the director admits, that is partly an effort to deliver a dose of poetic justice to a war criminal who was never tried for his crimes.
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