'Nazi Drawings' filmmaker aims for an Oscar

Iowa City Press-Citizen

Iowa City filmmaker Lane Wyrick has submitted his award-winning documentary, "The Nazi Drawings," for consideration in this year's Academy Awards competition.

The Academy Awards selection process will whittle the submissions to the top 10 later this year and then to the top five nominees, with the winner being announced during the Oscars telecast.

One of the final steps towards qualifying for Oscar consideration was a theatrical screening. The movie drew an audience of more than 500 people to its premiere earlier this month at the Directors Guild Theater in Los Angeles.

Sponsored in part by the UI Alumni Association, the premiere marked the first time the documentary has been shown on 35mm film. The decision to transfer the documentary from 16mm to the more expensive 35mm film cost $8,500, and was made due to Wyrick's insistence on preserving the fidelity of UI Professor of New Music David Gompper's haunting original music score.

The documentary will be entered in the Short Documentary category. Previously, the documentary was awarded the "Best Documentary" and "Best Director" at the New York International Independent Film Festival.

The 25-minute documentary explores the history and passion behind artist Mauricio Lasansky's powerful graphic series of drawings depicting the horrors of Nazi atrocities. Award-winning television producer and UI graduate Marian Rees introduced the documentary, calling it "a profoundly moving, disturbing and relevant documentation of the dimensions of evil."

"My task was to translate the power and emotion of the drawings into the medium of filmmaking," Wyrick said. "At screenings across the country, audiences have reacted very favorably while simultaneously being deeply disturbed, with many audience members being brought to tears."

Reprinted from the Iowa City Press-Citizen,
November 2, 2001 (Iowa City, Iowa).
Used with permission.