Israeli theater owner might showcase film about Hitler

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli film distributor will show an Academy Award-nominated movie about Hitler to general audiences after the film received positive feedback from viewers during a test screening, the company's owner said Wednesday.\nNurit Shani, owner of the Lev cinema chain, said 1,000 Israelis invited to the test screening last week voted overwhelmingly in favor of showing "Der Untergang," or "The Downfall," to the public.\nThe German movie, which recounts Hitler's final days in a Berlin bunker, has been criticized for its humanizing portrait of the Nazi leader, who is seen stroking dogs and chatting amiably with female aides.\n"Hitler and the Third Reich played a major role in the history of our nation," said Shani, whose Shani Films is the movie's distributor.\n"I think it's very curious, very interesting for the Israeli audience, dealing with this phenomenon of a tyrant ... who had a desire to rule the world and above all to cleanse Europe of the Jewish nation."\nThe Jewish state gained independence in the wake of World War II. About 280,000 Holocaust survivors live in Israel.\nPoliticians routinely refer to the slaughter of 6 million Jews by the Nazis to score political points. Israel maintains an informal ban on the works of Richard Wagner, Hitler's favorite composer, and several lawmakers boycotted the recent appearance of Germany's president in the Israeli parliament.\nShani, whose parents and in-laws escaped the Holocaust, said she was well aware of the sensitivity of the subject.\n"But I'm not going to avoid it because we can't ignore it," she said. "Furthermore, I'm not a censor. I hate censorship."\nSo far, she has received only positive reactions to her decision to show the film, she said.\nShani said the film would open in three Israeli cities May 19. To avoid offending anyone, she said she wanted to wait until after Israel's annual Holocaust Memorial Day on May 5 before showing the film. Eventually, she hopes to screen the film at all seven of her theaters.\nThe movie, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring Bruno Ganz as Hitler, describes the last days of the Third Reich in April 1945 from the viewpoint of Traudl Junge, the secretary who took down Hitler's will and told her story in a documentary released shortly before her 2002 death.\nIt was nominated for an Academy Award in the best foreign-language film category.