Film
Producer Branko Lustig Reflects on his Film Career
As Croatian producer Branko Lustig knows all too well, success isn’t always measured in fame or recognition. Reflecting on his Hollywood career in a recent interview with Jutarnji list, Lustig, who splits his time between Los Angeles and Zagreb, put it like this: “I’ve worked a lot, but I’m not famous. Do you know what is the best indication of this? When you walk into a restaurant here in Hollywood, and a table is immediately made available for you. But wherever I go here, no one gets up; no one clears tables for me for a long time. The only table that awaits me is at Charlie’s [in Zagreb].”
Lustig doesn’t seem to mind too much – what matters to him most is the social and personal impact of cinema. But he is, in fact, one of the most successful producers in Hollywood, with an admirable collection of BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Emmys under his belt, along with two Oscars for Schindler’s List and Gladiator. It has been a big year for Lustig, both personally and professionally. Schindler’s List is celebrating its twentieth anniversary, and Lustig, himself a Holocaust survivor, recently made a pilgrimage to Auschwitz, where he finally celebrated the bar mitzvah he missed as a boy.
Born in Osijek, Croatia, to a Jewish family, Lustig was imprisoned as a child during World War II. He was sent to Auschwitz, followed by several nearby subcamps, and was finally moved to Bergen-Belsen. Lustig was just shy of 13 when the camp was liberated in 1945.
Earlier this year, in an interview with TIME commemorating Shindler’s List, Lustig recounted the story of how he began working with Steven Spielberg. He had come to the United States to work on the miniseries War and Remembrance and had been in the country for about two years when he introduced himself Spielberg. The two hit it off and ended up talking about Schindler’s List, a film that Spielberg had been sitting on for years. (He had even offered it to several other directors before resolving to make the film himself.) At the end of their initial conversation, Spielberg named Lustig his co-producer.
The universally acclaimed film is based on the book Schindler’s Ark by Thomas Keneally and tells the story of Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of over 1,000 Jews by employing them in his factory. The film won seven Oscars at the 66th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and is often designated as one of the greatest films of all time.
Lustig’s other films include Black Hawk Down, American Gangster, Hannibal, Kingdom of Heaven, and The Saint. He is also the chairman of Six Point Films, a production company dedicated to producing positive and uplifting theatrical films, and the honorary president of the Zagreb Jewish Film Festival, the only Jewish film festival in the region. Apart from his work in cinema, Lustig has also dedicated himself to advocating Holocaust awareness and remembrance as an advisor for the USC Shoah Foundation, established by Steven Spielberg in 1994. With over 50,000 testimonies given by Holocaust survivors, the digital archive is the largest of its kind in the world, and, as Lustig proudly notes, these documentaries are now inspiring a younger generation of filmmakers.
View the New York Times documentary on Lustig’s recent return to Auschwitz below.
Written by Elaine Ritchel (@elaineritchel)
Image source: National
