Germany and Israel Unite to Film the Story of Concentration Camp's Clown

German and Israeli filmmakers have come together to tackle the subject of the Holocaust for the first time in an ambitious screen adaptation of a bestselling novel.

Their groundbreaking collaboration over the highly sensitive topic has attracted a star-studded cast in what has been described as a 'tightrope walk' of a project. Adam Resurrected, based on a darkly comic 1969 novel by popular Israeli author Yoram Kaniuk, tells the story of Adam Stein, a Jewish-German clown who is forced to entertain inmates in a Nazi concentration camp. His life is spared only because he plays his violin for the prisoners being sent to the gas chamber.

Jeff Goldblum is to play the part of Adam, while Willem Dafoe will play the concentration camp commandant who forces him to act like a dog. Goldblum has described it as 'the most difficult role I have ever had to play'. Directed by Paul Schrader, who is best known for his screenplay for Taxi Driver, and produced by the Israeli Ehud Bleiberg and the German Werner Wirsing, the harrowing film has been compared to Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winning Holocaust 'black comedy' Life is Beautiful.

One German critic wrote that Adam Resurrected was a 'risky tightrope walk which, if it is too funny, is in danger of mocking Holocaust survivors, if it is too serious, misrepresents the character of the book'.

Top German actors such as Moritz Bleibtreu and Veronica Ferres also have starring roles along with several Israeli household names such as Ayelet Zurer, who was in Steven Spielberg's Munich

Much of Adam Resurrected is set in an asylum for Holocaust survivors in Israel's Negev desert where Stein is sent to recover from a nervous breakdown after he goes in search of his last surviving family member.

To research the role Goldblum visited Israel and spoke to Holocaust survivors. He also spent time in Berlin. He also took violin lessons so he could properly portray his character.

When Kaniuk published his novel in Israel it was a flop. The 77-year-old writer said: 'At that time no one in Israel wanted to hear victims' stories.'

The £7m film, which was filmed in Haifa, Tel Aviv, Romania and Germany, is tipped to premiere at the Berlin Film Festival in February.