‘The Zone of Interest’ Director Jonathan Glazer Calls Out Israel’s “Occupation” of Palestine in Rousing Oscars Speech

The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer spoke out against Israel’s “occupation” in Palestine, the Israel attacks on Gaza, as well as the Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, while accepting the award for Best International Feature Film at the 2024 Oscars on Sunday night.

The British director, who is Jewish, has been outspoken against Israel’s war in the Gaza strip of Palestine throughout this award season. But on Sunday night, his message was broadcast on ABC for the world to hear.

“All of our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present, not to say look what they did then, rather, look what we do now,” Glazer said of his Holocaust drama in his Oscar acceptance speech. “Our film shows where dehumanization leads, at it’s worst. It shaped all of our past and present. Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel, or the ongoing attack on Gaza, or the victims of this dehumanization. How do we resist?”

The Zone of Interest is an unsettling Holocaust drama that tells the true story of Nazi Rudolf Höss, who was the commandant of the of the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. Glazer never shows any of the horrors of the Holocaust on screen but instead employs a chillingly effective sound design, that captures the screams, drones, and anguish of the violent genocide—all going on while the Höss family purposefully ignores the horrors happening in their backyard.

There is one character in the movie with a conscious: A Polish girl who lives near the Höss family, who risks her life to smuggle fruit into the concentration camp. That character was based on a real-life Polish woman, named Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, whom Glazer met when she was 90 years old. Though she has since passed on, Glazer dedicated the last part of his speech to her.

“Aleksandra Bystroń-Kołodziejczyk, the girl who glows in the film as she did in life, chose to [resist],” Glazer said as he concluded his speech. “I dedicate this to her resistance and to her memory, thank you.”