Witold Pilecki's story is a great one. As a soldier with the Polish Army in World War II, Pilecki volunteered for a Polish resistance operation that involved infiltrating (and later escaping from) the Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1941 he wrote the first comprehensive intelligence report on Auschwitz and the Holocaust, but it was ignored by the Allied powers. Pilecki was the co-founder of Nazi a resistance group, the Secret Polish Army and a fighter in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
Several books were written on Pilecki. He was praised by Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich as “one of the greatest wartime heroes” and by British historian Norman Davies as an “Allied hero” who deserves to be “remembered and celebrated.” But Pilecki's story has been largely forgotten outside of Poland. Two local biopics — the 2006 TV movie The Death of Captain Pilecki and the docu-feature Pilecki in 2015 — received minimal attention internationally.
Austrian filmmaker Feo Aladag is hoping to make a difference with a new feature on Pilecki's life, which she will write and direct. Reportedly titled The Inconvenient Truth, the film will focus on Pilecki's experience in Auschwitz and up to his death, but will also link to the present day.
“Pilecki's story is one that has universal relevance, particularly in our current political climate,” Aladag said in a recent interview, “that there are certain crimes where one cannot afford to look away, whatever the personal cost. And that it is not enough just to look, that one has to act as well.” she added.
Aladag is putting up The Inconvenient Truth as a European co-production with Polish partners and has scheduled to be shooting later this year for release in 2021. The film has not been cast yet.
