Jonathan Glazer condemns bombing of Gaza in Oscar speech

By Laura Harding, PA Deputy Entertainment Editor

British director Jonathan Glazer has condemned the ongoing attacks on the Gaza Strip as he accepted an Oscar for his film about the banality of evil during the Holocaust.

The Zone Of Interest won the best international feature Oscar for the United Kingdom.

The harrowing portrait of a family living in a house and garden next to a concentration camp stars German actor Christian Friedel as Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss while Sandra Huller plays his wife Hedwig.

Hoss was a long-serving Nazi officer who was widely acknowledged as one of the architects of mass extermination during the Holocaust.

Much of the film follows the mundanity of family life, never venturing inside the camp, while the background sound and the billowing smoke hints at the horrors taking place over the fence.

Accepting the award, Glazer’s hands appeared to tremble as he read a pre-written speech, saying: “All of our choices were made to confront us in the present. Not to say ‘Look what they did then, rather look what we do now’.”

He added: “Our film shows where dehumanisation leads at its worst – it’s shaped all of our past and present.

“Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.

“Whether it’s the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all are victims of this dehumanisation. How do we resist?”

He was met with applause before he continued: “Alexandria… the girl who glows in the film, as she did in life, chose to. I dedicate this to her memory and to her resistance.”