Roman Polanski Plans Dreyfus Flick

By JTA May 10, 2012

Polish director Roman Polanski’s next film will be a political thriller based on the Dreyfus Affair.

The acclaimed director announced Wednesday that the new film, titled “D,” will reunite the team that produced his award-winning film “Ghost Writer.”

Albert Dreyfus was a French Jewish army officer who was falsely convicted of treason in 1894. In the ensuing 12-year battle to clear his name, anti-Semitism played a major factor.

Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, covered the story for a Viennese newspaper and was inspired by the trial to found an international Zionist organization.

Polanski is a Holocaust survivor, and his escape from the Krakow Ghetto was the backdrop for his 2002 movie “The Pianist.” He has lived in Europe since pleading guilty to statutory rape in 1978.

“I have long wanted to make a film about the Dreyfus Affair, treating it not as a costume drama but as a spy story,” Polanski told the Los Angeles Times. “In this way one can show its absolute relevance to what is happening in today’s world.”

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