Omer Fast b. 1972
Spielberg's List (2003)
Duration: 65 minutes


""Spielberg's List" is a two channel video work constructed around the experiences of Polish extras that participated in Steven Spielberg's shooting of "Schindler's List". Spielberg shot his film on location in Krakow and its vicinity and used hundreds of local extras for the scenes involving the deportation, the camp, etc. An elaborate concentration camp set was built and never completely dismantled. It has since become a tourist attraction (there are numerous "Schindler's List Tours of Krakow" available and the movie has played a significant part in the revitalization of Kazimierz, the former Jewish Ghetto in Krakow). Fast traveled to Krakow where he located and interviewed Œ'survivors' of "Schindler's List" - both young and old - and asked them to describe their experience and the scenes they were in, often without elaborating on the fact that they're describing a movie. Fast here also uses the standard documentary device of an interview in order to construct a narrative that has as its center a paradox stemming from the passage of memory from private to public trust.

Mixing footage from the Plaszow camp set and from its neighboring Plaszow camp ground, from interviews with extras who participated in the film and in some cases experienced the events it depicts in their own lives, as well as segments from the “Schindler's List" tours, Fast creates a layered work in which the idea of memory and what is real is both expanded and put under considerable duress when filmed entertainment turns (in)to history.