United States 2023, 79 min, English and German, Hebrew & English subtitles

For 70 years, Nathan Hilu has been unable to stop drawing. His 90-year-old mind is flooded with memories from the days when the US military assigned him to guard top Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg trials, keeping them from committing suicide before their verdict was announced. Born to a Syrian Jewish family that immigrated to the States, Hilu remembers with vivid clarity the encounters that changed his life: his conversations with Albert Speer, the long kiss between Göring and his wife, the words he said to each of the accused before leading them to the gallows. These stories recur again and again in his drawings and in the texts that accompany them—rare pieces that never gained him any recognition in the art world. But what really happened back there, in Nuremberg? Could his vivid memories be deceiving him?

Yad Vashem Award for an outstanding Holocaust-related documentary.

Previous Festivals: Hot Docs

Official Website

After first being exposed to filmmaking during his military service in Israel, Elan has worked in New York as an editor on numerous projects. While working on “Nathan-ism”, he co-edited Mike Birbiglia's "Don't Think Twice" (SXSW, Tribeca) and Maya Zinshtein's documentary “‘Til Kingdom Come” (DocAviv, IDFA).

Production: Elan Golod, Melanie Vi Levy
Production Company: Ugly or Beautiful Films
Editing: Elan Golod
Cinematography: Jason Blevins
Music: Christopher Bowen

Source: Museum and Crane