Holocaust film creates buzz with seven Oscar nominations

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 9 (JTA) — “Life Is Beautiful,” the tragicomic fable of a Jewish father trying to shield his son from the horrors of a concentration camp, has won seven Oscar nominations. Although other films received more nominations, the Italian “Life Is Beautiful” captured much of the Hollywood buzz by becoming the first movie in 30 years to be nominated for both best overall picture and best foreign film. The last film to pull off that feat was the political thriller “Z” in 1969. Roberto Benigni, the driving force behind “Life Is Beautiful,” also received nominations for best director, best actor and best screenplay. In a recent interview with JTA, he was asked how he, a Catholic, summoned the daring to play a Jew in a concentration camp. The usually ebullient Benigni responded soberly, “The Holocaust belongs to everyone. I am a man, and therefore it belongs to me.” Steven Spielberg scored in both the more-glamorous and less-noticed categories. His graphic World War II saga, “Saving Private Ryan,” won 11 nominations, including best picture. Spielberg was also nominated for best director. Talking about the film a few days earlier, Spielberg told JTA that “this is really an extension of ‘Schindler’s List.’ It honors the men whose bravery ended the war in 1945, rather than 1947, when no Jew would have been left alive in Europe.” Nominated in the documentary feature category was “The Last Days,” produced by Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation. The documentary, directed by James Moll, depicts the experiences of five Hungarian Jews who survived the Holocaust and then return to the sites of the former concentration camps and their native towns. “Prince of Egypt,” the much ballyhooed animated version of the life of Moses, won two nominations, one for original score. The other nomination was for original song, the rousing “When You Believe” by Stephen Schwartz, which is sung during the movie by the children of Israel as they depart Egypt. In the best foreign film category, one of the competitors to “Life Is Beautiful” is “Central Station,” entered by Brazil. It was produced by the veteran Swiss Jewish filmmaker, Arthur Cohn, whose earlier films include “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis,” about the fate of an Italian Jewish family during World War II.