Lunch with Hitler, a short film shot entirely in German, with English subtitles, won a SAFTA Craft Award last weekend in the Best Online Content category.
The eight minute film, written and directed by Johannesburg-based filmmaker Christopher Grant Harvey, was inspired by accounts of the young women who were compelled into service as taste testers for Adolf Hitler during World War Two, after rumours circulated that the Allies had plans to poison Hitler.
Says Harvey: “I came across the story in an article based on a German woman, Margot Wölk, who recounted how she’d been one of Hitler’s tasters during WWII. The story struck a chord with me and I immediately started work on building a story around the article. It took several years for the film to get off the ground and finally be released, but despite the prolonged development period, the story’s poignancy never left my mind.”
Harvey says that although the win was unexpected, he was delighted and dedicated the win to the cast and crew who had put in the long hours and the hard work.
Filmed on location at Pretoria Boys High School, Lunch with Hitler stars Deborah Lettner, Briony Horwitz, Mila Guy and Andre Odendaal and can be viewed at: https://youtu.be/LFJ_bE74ylA
