The Trial, Prague 1952 (Le procès, Prague 1952)

France, 2022 (70 min.)

In Prague in 2018, workers found in an abandoned warehouse film reels of the Slansky Trial, held in 1952: a macabre production in which 14 top leaders of the Communist regime, most of them Jews, were accused of imaginary crimes and forced, through torture and threats, to make a public confession of their guilt, which was also imaginary. 11 of them were sentenced to death and hanged. With the help of these recently restored films and a dive into the archives of the secret police, Ruth Zylberman went to meet these broken families in order to retrace the lives of Rudolf Slansky, Artur London and Rudolf Margolius.

“I find it important to see how our relationship to the truth is fragile, how our relationship to conformity and fear is crucial” –Ruth Zilberman