Claude Lanzmann(1925-2018)

In 2013 Claude Lanzmann received the Honorary Golden Bear for 'Lifetime Achievement' at the 63rd Berlin International Film Festival. It was the first time that a documentary filmmaker received this honor from the Berlinale.

The first and only time Shoah (1985) was screened at a cinema in Madrid, Castilian fascists in brown shirts and swastika armbands set up booths by the theatre doors and passed out the worst revisionist literature to viewers beneath the unruffled gaze of the police, who refused to intervene: they hadn't been ordered to. Such was freedom in the fledgling Spanish democracy! The next day, when the second part was screening, a bomb scare put an end to its run: this time, the police intervened zealously to evacuate the room. Later, Spanish national television broadcast "Shoah" at the outrageous hour of 2 a.m., tantamount to censorship. I intervened with the highest cultural authorities in an attempt to secure another broadcast, but in vain. I was told that television was free to choose its shows and schedule. [preface to "Shoah, une pédagogie de la mémoire" by Carles Torner, Éditions de l'Atelier, Paris 2001]