'The Zone of Interest': A Disturbing Glimpse into the Life of Auschwitz Commandant's Family

Oscar-nominated film uses indirect hints and unsettling imagery to depict the horrors of the Holocaust.

'The Zone of Interest', an Oscar-nominated film, depicts the life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss and his family, living just outside the concentration camp.
The film does not directly show the horrors of Auschwitz, instead using distant sounds of gunshots and screams, and the family's indifference to them, to hint at the atrocities.
Production designer Chris Oddy meticulously recreated the Höss family home and garden based on historical records and photographs, with the set constructed on location in Poland, next to Auschwitz.
The film uses hidden cameras and natural lighting to avoid aestheticising the Holocaust, and presents familiar Holocaust images in unsettling ways.
The film underscores how walls, borders or geographic distance compartmentalise the suffering of others, enabling genocide.