Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Could Claude Lanzmann Documentary Win Surprise Oscar?

Adam Benzine, who directed the 40-minute documentary “Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah “was sitting with his aunt, uncle and producer in New York City watching the Oscar nomination live stream and waiting, and waiting some more, for the announcements.

“It kind of amplifies the dread,” Benzine said of the extravagant ceremony. “I wish they would read it off a paper or put it up online.”

It was worth the wait though when his documentary secured a nomination for Best Documentary Short. It will debut on HBO May 2. The film took four years to make and Benzine said it was an “uphill battle” due to financial struggles in the beginning.

The documentary chronicles the French filmmaker Claude Lanzmann and the twelve years it took him to make his 1985 Holocaust film “Shoah,” which has a running time of over nine hours. Benzine and his crew had exclusive interviews with Lanzmann, who discusses his challenges with traumatized survivors and gives access to unpublished footage.

Benzine, who is British, began his career as a journalist after receiving a master’s in magazine journalism from City University London in 2010. He went on to report for CMP Information, Music Week, C21 Media and later edit at Realscreen. This is his first directing project.

Despite “Spectres of the Shoah’s” acclaim — it had its world premiere in Toronto at the Hot Docs Film Festival to great reviews — Benzine said the nomination came as a surprise.

“You don’t know what’s going to resonate with particular academy voters,” he said. “It can be very hard for short films to stand out.”

Benzine, who of course, said he feels fantastic about the nomination and grateful to his crew, thanked Lanzmann several times in an interview with The Forward.

“I’m really happy for Claude Lanzmann,” he said. “I feel this is a nomination for him.”

Britta Lokting is the Forward’s culture fellow.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.