Jaco Van Dormael Sets English-Language Feature ‘The Magician of Auschwitz’ With Belga Films

Melanie Goodfellow
·3-min read

EXCLUSIVE: Belgian distribution and production company Belga Films Group is reuniting with award-winning director Jaco Van Dormael to produce The Magician of Auschwitz, which will be his first English-language feature in 15 years after shooting mainly in French.

Van Dormael will direct from a screenplay adaptation by Jacob Marx Rice of Portuguese journalist and writer José António Dos Santos’ twin novels ‘The Magician of Auschwitz’ and ‘The Birkenau Scrolls’, about a Portuguese soldier, Russian girl and Jewish magician thrown together in the horror of Auschwitz.

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Dos Santos drew the novels from authentic manuscripts written by members of the Sonderkommando during the Holocaust and found hidden near death camp crematoria post-liberation. They shed light on the harrowing experiences of the members of special command units composed of prisoners who were forced to help run the gas chambers and crematoria.

“Dos Santos casts a rare historical spotlight on the delusional beliefs on which the Nazis’ racial theories were based,” says Van Dormael, explaining what interested him in the project.

“The SS leaders were fascinated by mysticism and the occult, convinced that the Aryan race was a divine race that had come from Atlantis after six moons had fallen to Earth. The Atlanteans, a people of supermen, were said to have spread to Germany and Tibet. Jesus, according to their story, was an Aryan persecuted by the Jews.”

“It is these delusional beliefs that the magician of Auschwitz uses in his magic tricks to survive in the heart of hell. The point of this film is that every war is based on a fiction. A fiction must be created to designate an enemy. Fictions on which racism, nations, wars and holocausts are based. Thanks to the invaluable manuscripts found buried near the crematoria, Dos Santos, adapted into a screenplay by Jacob Marx Rice, brings us closer to history.”

The Magician of Auschwitz is due to shooting in Europe in early 2025. Casting is under way by UK casting directors Reg Poerscout-Edgerton and Lillie Jeffrey (Argylle, King’s Man franchise, Sherlock Holmes, RocknRolla).

Patrick Vandenbosch and Jean-Jacques Neira are producing for Belga Studios, an affiliate company of the Belga Films Group.

Neira explains that In the movie adaptation, the protagonists navigate the inhumane landscape of Auschwitz, turning to magic as both a form of escapism and a source of hope.

“Our story offers a distinctive take on the theme of deception —mass deception, the deception of the audience through a magician’s perspective, and also self-deception. It explores the incredulity and denial that people can retreat into as a means of coping with overwhelming atrocities,” he said.

Belga Films Group CEO Vandenbosch previously worked with Van Dormael on 2015 comedy-fantasy The Brand New Testament, starring Benoit Poolvoorde and Catherine Deneuve.

“We are truly honored to collaborate with Jaco, a director whose singular approach to visual storytelling sets him apart,” said Vandenbosch.

“As a versatile artist, he elevates a wide range of subjects with his creativity, consistently exploring life’s deeper meanings through his characters’ journeys. His work has captivated audiences worldwide, and recent box office results confirm that moviegoers return to theaters for prestige films directed by acclaimed talents like him.”

Van Dormael’s last English-speaking was the 2009 sci-fi fantasy Mr. Nobody, which starred Jared Leto and Diane Kruger and premiered in Venice.

The director made his feature debut in 1991 with Toto le Héros, which won the Golden Camera at the Cannes Film Festival and the César for Best Foreign Film. His 1996 feature The Eighth Day earned Daniel Auteuil and Pascal Duquenne the shared Best Actor award at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.

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