After meeting with members of the Film Group, buying our tickets and not forgetting the free tea, coffee, and biscuits, we made our way to Screen 3. The lights went down.

There was a blank screen and then the sound, which was indescribable - a haunting kind of music which had no tune. The film starts. Rudolf Hoss and his family are having a picnic at the side of the river, just a normal family. When they arrive home you see the house, gardens, a small pool for the children with a slide. In the surrounding edges of the garden are flower, plants, grass, and the wall.

This film is set outside the walls of Auschwitz. It never takes you inside the camp, but the effects make you feel cold; the train arriving only showing the smoke, the chimneys with fire out of the top, the screaming, the gun shots, the dogs barking. The film tells the story of a Nazi Officer, Rudolf Hoss, and his wife Hedwig who build a dream life for their family in a house and garden over the wall from the prison camp. They placidly go about their lives and are indifferent to the horrors that are happening over the wall in Auschwitz, the most notorious of the German concentration camps during World War Two.

The ‘Zone of Interest’ is a novel by the English author Martin Amis which was published in 2014. The book was adapted into a feature film by writer/director Jonathan Glazer. It premiered in 2023. It has just made history by being the first UK film to win the best international feature Oscar and got best sound for Johnnie Burn’s ‘nightmarish ambient sound design’. Some members of the group then went on to the Cast café for more tea and coffee and to discuss the film.

This film was chilling. I will not give the ending away but will say that quite a few tears were shed during the screening.

Gill Weston