THE SPECIALIST

Year: 1999
USA: Kino International
Cast: Adolf Eichmann
Director: Eyal Sivan
Countries: Austria / Belgium / France / Germany / Israel
Language: French / English / German / Hebrew
USA: 128 mins
USA Release Date: 14 April 2000 (Limited Release - New York)

THE SPECIALIST is an extraordinary new documentary on the trial of Adolph Eichmann. Filmmakers Eyal Sivan and Rony Brauman were given access to the 350 hours of footage from Eichmann¹s trial in Israel in 1960. Following Hannah Arendt's famous book, Eichmann in Jerusalem, the film presents a devastating portrait of what she called "the banality of evil".

On May 11, 1960, 40 years ago, Adolf Eichmann, a leading player in the Holocaust, is captured by the Israeli Secret Service in Argentina, where he has been living for ten years as "Ricardo Klement". One year later he is put on trial in Jerusalem, seated in a specially-designed bullet proof glass box, and tried for crimes against "humanity".

To record the historic trial, the Israelis hire noted American documentarian Leo Hurwitz who shoots 350 hours, from which filmmakers Eyal Sivan and Rony Bauman have constructed THE SPECIALIST. SS Lieutenant Colonel Eichmann, a specialist in the transportation of freight via railroad, gives the classic excuse that he was just following orders.