CANNES, France – Featuring narration by Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis and Brian Cox – Reading letters from Raoul Wallenberg, his mother Marge von Dardel, and his grandfather Gustav Wallenberg – True crime documentary “Raoul Wallenberg: Disappearance of Inaction,” executive produced by Jeff Sagansky and co-produced and distributed by Eric Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, is the earliest to be released. Sales closed in Australia, Sweden and Israel.
In Australia, public broadcaster SBS is scheduled to release Missing Inaction in late 2025, while Swedish national broadcaster SVT and Israeli cable service HOT have aired the film.
Barmack told Variety that more territories are in negotiations.
That’s not surprising. Although Wallenberg’s character and his accomplishments remain remembered decades after he became known, he is in danger of slipping into oblivion.
Director Brad Rothschild said, “There are generations who know about Raoul Wallenberg’s life, accomplishments, and incredible legacy, but for today’s generation, he is a completely unknown figure from a bygone era.” “We worked hard to make this film so that Raoul Wallenberg’s story and the magnitude of his legacy would never be forgotten. Now, more than ever, stories like his need to be told.”
The early part of Raoul Wallenberg: Lost Omissions is rightly devoted to these achievements.
The scion of the Wallenberg family, one of Sweden’s most powerful families, which owned about 40 percent of Sweden’s industry in the early 20th century, Wallenberg was born in Sweden in 1912 but moved to Budapest in July 1944 to lead a humanitarian mission secretly championed by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Refugee Commission.
Wallenberg arrived five months after Nazi forces began deporting some 437,000 Jews from the outskirts of Budapest to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. Taking advantage of Sweden’s neutrality in World War II, Wallenberg designed and issued 5,000 Schutzpasses, converting Hungarian Jews into Swedish citizens. He then forged up to 20,000 more people, bought shelter housing for Jews, ran supplies and hospitals, and personally arrived to take Jews from death marches to extermination camps in Austria. His rescue is described in a documentary feature as the largest Jewish rescue operation during World War II.
“Everyone I met had a Wallenberg story. He saved them or they saved their relatives. He was a coordinator, a master conductor of humanity,” says Frank Vajda, who was saved by Wallenberg at the age of 9.
Brian Cox, Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Lee Curtis discuss why they joined ‘Raoul Wallenberg: Disappeared of Inaction’
“Raoul Wallenberg stood up to protect innocent victims and stand up for humanity,” said Cox, who plays Gustav Wallenberg, a man who cares about the world of his grandson and dreams of a successful career as a banker. “Raoul Wallenberg is a man we should never forget, and I am honored to join this film to tell his story and cement his legacy,” Cox added.
A closer connection often works to explain its excellent cast and producer Alex Luciser’s involvement. For him, “Raoul Wallenberg: Lost Inaction” was a passion project.
“As someone with both Jewish and Swedish roots, Raoul Wallenberg’s story has always had deep personal meaning to me,” Gyllenhaal said. “His courage, his willingness to risk everything to save thousands of lives, is something I truly admire. I am deeply honored to have the opportunity to give voice to someone who has had such a powerful impact, but for so long has remained largely unknown.”
“I am the proud granddaughter of Emanuel Schwartz, father of my father Tony Curtis. I am proud that my family’s name is associated with the restoration of the Dohany Street Synagogue in Budapest. My great-grandparents and grandparents; I hope my parents are very proud and happy that I identify with Raoul Wallenberg and his legacy and his story of bravery and bravery under fire. This film and this story are extremely important today.” Curtis.
“Discovering a deep personal connection to Raoul Wallenberg inspired us to make this documentary. He and I are both alumni of the University of Michigan, and that connection shaped the project itself, as nearly all of our filmmaking team were University of Michigan alumni and similarly inspired by Wallenberg’s sacrifice,” said producer Luciser.
Gradually ratcheting up the tension in true crime: What happened to Wallenberg?
In the documentary featurette, Curtis plays the voice of Wallenberg’s mother, who devoted her life to writing letters to the Swedish government, Truman, and even Khrushchev when he disappeared without a trace, imploring the then-Soviet head of state to look for him or find out what happened to him.
After 34 years of fruitless fighting, Major von Dardel and Wallenberg’s stepfather, Fredrik von Dardel, committed suicide in 1979. “They couldn’t take it anymore,” their great-grandson said in the documentary feature.
Everyone agrees that Wallenberg was arrested on charges of spying for the United States. “The question is not why he was arrested. The question is why he was not released,” biographer Ingrid Carlberg says in the middle of Raoul Wallenberg: The Lost Omissions.
The documentary feature is “like a modern-day crime series set in a World War II world,” Barmack said. In true crime style, it will keep you entertained, either by destroying it in the end or just building a solution to some of the mysteries.
One, and the simplest, is that Wallenberg refused to be made a Soviet agent and signed a death sentence.
However, the “lost omission” claim does not end there. Another argument is that the Swedish government did not want to jeopardize relations with the not-so-distant Soviet Union and did not do everything it could to get Wallenberg back. This documentary feature documents news reports during Wallenberg’s imprisonment in which Swedish Prime Minister Taj Erlander made a similar admission, acknowledging that the government had let down one of its great citizens by not pressing for his release.
But the most important explanation for Wallenberg’s fate lies elsewhere, giving this docu-feature novelty and a powerful final half-hour.
“I have been following the Wallenberg mystery for years, and when I saw the new sources the filmmakers uncovered, I knew I had to support this project,” said Jeff Sagansky.
“For decades, countless books, biographies and films have explored the life and work of Raoul Wallenberg, but only ‘Missing Inaction’ shatters long-held myths and reveals the definitive truth,” said director Brian Mate.
It added: “Based on more than a decade of extensive research of our own and building on the work of our predecessors, our film tells what history has long denied and brings to a close one of its greatest unsolved mysteries: the ultimate fate of Raoul Wallenberg.”
The truth is very convincing and packs a nasty punch.
