Sam Mendes to helm BBC2 liberation doc

Sam Mendes is making his debut in documentary directing with a BBC2 Lightbox film marking the 80th anniversary of the Bergen-Belsen liberation. 

What They Found will use archive footage and first-person testimony to tell the story of two members of the British Army’s film and photographic unit who accompanied the forces freeing captives from the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the end of World War II. 

On 15 April 1945, British soldier-cameramen Sgt. Mike Lewis and Sgt. Bill Lawrie, covering the campaign in North West Europe for the photographic unit, accompanied British troops to what they were told was a typhus hospital in Northern Germany, named Bergen-Belsen.  

When they arrived there, the full horrors of what was going on inside the camp were revealed to them and, through their footage, to the world - for the first time. 

Drawing on their footage and words, viewers will bear witness to a personal record of ordinary men’s experience of war and an experience of the trauma and tragedy of the Holocaust.

Produced by War Child and The Mission indie Lightbox, in association with Mendes and Pippa Harris’s Neal Street Productions and Imperial War Museums (IWM), What They Found was commissioned for BBC2 and iPlayer by Jack Bootle, head of commissioning, specialist factual. The commission editor is Simon Young, head of commissioning, history for the BBC.  

It is directed by Mendes and produced by Lightbox’s Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn alongside Gaby Aung. Executive producers are Harris for Neal Street, Caro Howell and Vicky Stanbury for Imperial War Museums and David Baddiel. Vanessa Tovell serves as co-producer for Lightbox and the editor is Andy Worboys. All3Media International will handle worldwide distribution.

Mendes said: “Using only the voices and footage shot by two British army cameramen during the latter stages of the Second World War, I hope this documentary gives a unique perspective on the discovery of the horrors of Belsen, and the reality of the Holocaust.”  

Young said: “In April 1945, BBC Radio broadcast a horrifying eyewitness report from Bergen-Belsen. There could be no more fitting way to mark the anniversary of the liberation than by working with Sam Mendes and his team to create a chilling vision of what the liberators found. It has been an honour to collaborate with the Imperial War Museum, Lightbox and Neal Street on this unique project.” 

Simon and Jonathan Chinn said: “The last survivors and witnesses to the Nazi atrocities at Bergen-Belsen and elsewhere sadly won’t be with us for much longer. Through making What They Found, Sam Mendes has created a powerful and undeniable record of these events at a time when surveys show that more and more young people aren’t aware of the Holocaust, and its veracity is being debated or denied in ever-increasing numbers. 

The IWM’s head of public history Dr James Bulgin, a curatorial expert on the Holocaust, said: “The sights captured by the cameramen who were present at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen have left an indelible mark on the world. What They Found uses IWM’s collections to give those scenes critical context, describing them from the unique perspective of those who witnessed them first hand. The film is a searing and timely reminder that each person caught up in this terrible history experienced it as an individual.”