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"That film is going to need festival support," Nelson says of his latest directing effort, The Grey Zone. Nelson will be here after the 26th annual Toronto International Film Festival kicks off Thursday with the world premiere of Vancouver filmmaker Bruce Sweeney's quirky comedy Last Wedding.
There is nothing comedic about The Grey Zone, says Nelson. This is a searing human drama, which Nelson adapted from his own stage play, about life inside the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The story, told by David Arquette, Steve Buscemi, Harvey Keitel and Mira Sorvino, works inside a moral "grey zone" and chronicles the only armed revolt ever to take place in this living hell.
"It is an extremely difficult film," says Nelson. "When you see it, you'll get it. I mean, there is a reason that a movie that takes place almost entirely inside one of the crematoria at Auschwitz hasn't been made (before this one). Luckily, I was able to persuade these folks to put up the money."
The Grey Zone was produced by Millennium Films in L.A. and was bought for distribution last month by the risk-taking Lions Gate Films, which just released Nelson's O, the American high school basketball version of Othello.
The Grey Zone was shot in Bulgaria on a modest $4-million budget, Nelson says. "In my own mini-version of James Cameron, we made a to-scale replica of two of the crematoria."
The Grey Zone is Nelson's fourth film as a director. "I live in New York," he says. "I direct movies that have been next to impossible to get financed." As an actor, Nelson is best known as the lovable goof who tags along with George Clooney and John Turturro in the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou?