Claude Lanzmann dies

Shoah director was 92

by Amber Wilkinson

Claude Lanzmann pictured at the New York Film Festival
Claude Lanzmann pictured at the New York Film Festival Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

Shoah director Claude Lanzmann has died in Paris, aged 92.

The French director was best known for his benchmark documentary on the Holocaust, which runs at more than nine hours and features extensive testimonies from those who spent time in the Nazi death camps. The film took more than 12 years to make and Lanzmann reflected on the process in 2015 documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres of the Shoah.

The director also revisited the Holocaust in his 2013 documentary The Last Of The Unjust, about the last Jewish elder of Theresienstadt. "When I saw the rushes, I decided that I was the only one able to do it," he told us, saying that is what gave him the strength to complete it.

In 2015 he was the subject of Adam Benzine's documentary Claude Lanzmann: Spectres Of The Shoah.

His final film, Napalm, was completed last year.

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