- Films shot on 3D in pre-war Nazi German have been unearthed
in Berlin's Federal Archives.
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- Two 30 minute black and white propaganda films in 1936
were found by Australian director Phillipe Mora, who is prepping a feature
length documentary on how the Nazis used images to manipulate reality.
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- Mora broke new ground with his first film "Swastika"
when it was released in 1973 featuring previously unseen color footage
from Hitler's "home" movies shot on a 16mm camera by his mistress
Eva Braun at the Berghof mountain retreat at Obersalzberg in the Bavarian
alps.
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- Now he has discovered that the Nazis were decades ahead
of Hollywood in developing a medium first popularized in the 1950s and
now enjoying an international renaissance.
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- "The films are shot on 35mm -- apparently with a
prism in front of two lenses," Mora who is at the Berlinale for his
planned $13 million 3D biopic on Salvador Dali, starring Alan Cumming and
Judy Davies that he plans to shoot in Germany, Australia and Spain.
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- "They were made by an independent studio for Goebbels'
propaganda ministry and referred to as 'raum film' -- or space film --
which may be why no one ever realised since that they were 3D."
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- One film, a musical set during a carnival entitled "So
Real You Can Touch It" features close up shots of sizzling bratwurst
on a barbeque; the other "Six Girls Roll into Weekend" has what
may be UFA studio starlets living it up.
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- "The quality of the films is fantastic. The Nazis
were obsessed with recording everything and every single image was controlled
-- it was all part of how they gained control of the country and its people,"
Mora said.
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- He plans to incorporate the material in a 3D section
of his documentary -- working title "How the Third Reich Was Recorded"
-- and is convinced there is more vintage 3D footage out there to be found.
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