God on Trial resonates today
Facing death, terror in the name of religion, questions about the nature of faith — the enduring themes of God on Trial.

Transcript

Stephen Dillane (Schmidt)
This wasn't necessarily about Auschwitz and the Jewish experience. It's about the question of faith.

Andy de Emmony (Director)
There has been a lot of death and killing and violence in the name of God. And that idea that anyone feels God is with them and not with the other side — we've used it to fuel wars for many years, so I think it is relevant in lots of ways today. I think it is a very human story really. I think some people have a morbid fascination with concentration camps, but I don't think Auschwitz particularly is our story. It's really about people facing death. I think that is where it hopefully is universal.

Jemma Rodgers (Producer)
I think that September 11th, 2001, and consequently the general sense of threat of other people's religion, is absolutely what God on Trial is about. You know it's around us, and we look into what created the Holocaust and kind of think, "How could that have happened" yet it is happening now.

Antony Sher (Akiba)
I mean to take the example of 9/11...when those planes struck those two towers there must have been people of all different religions inside the buildings, including the religion of the terrorists who were flying the planes. And those people who survived that attack, all the relatives of those that didn't, must have had to ask questions like we ask in the film about where was God in this terrible, terrible event. I think that is what the film is about and I think that is something that anybody can relate to.

Stellan Skarsgård (Baumgarten)
That is why we have to constantly keep our heads clear and be critical to ourselves because otherwise we repeat those things. Because human beings...it is very easy for a human being to torture another human being, to kill another human being. The varnish of civilization is very thin.