This film is a memoriam of the British military and their volunteer Dutch colleagues - the first victims on the paratroopers’ wall in Mauthausen. Their story is almost forgotten and was never filmed or screened.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT:
The plot is based on a true story: the “sophisticated” way of exterminating prisoners in the Mauthausen concentration camp. They were thrown from the so-called "rock of paratroopers" in the quarry. The first to die there in 1940 were British paratroopers and the Dutch volunteers who helped them. They were captured in Nazi-occupied Holland and became the first victims of this bloody "attraction". The guards and the administration of the camp enjoyed this “attraction” until the liberation of the camp in 1945.
Today we are witnessing a surge in cruelty, yet people are trying to psychologically defend themselves by "burying their heads in the sand” and believing that this does not concern them and will not ever affect them. But there is nowhere to hide. The unsolved problem will surely catch up. The story I am telling is addressed to just such people. Centuries pass, but the struggle between good and evil always remains the same. For me, war is a period when all our conventions simply dissolve, and the masks come off. And any person - a prisoner or his guard - strives to survive. This is life and death in its purest form. And all attempts to explain something, to justify things by saying “I was following the order” are ephemeral. That's what's important, that's what you want to understand and share with others. In this sense, cinematography is a perfect tool for creating reality.
