CANNES, France — Featuring voiceovers by Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis and Brian Cox – reading out letters from Raoul Wallenberg, his mother Maj von Dardel and grandfather Gustaf Wallenberg – true crime doc feature “Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction,” produced by Jeff Sagansky and co-produced and sold by Erik Barmack’s Wild Sheep Content, has secured its earliest sales, closing Australia, Sweden and Israel.
In Australia, public broadcaster SBS is set to release “Missing Inaction” later in 2025. Swedish state broadcaster SVT and Israeli cable service HOT have shown the film.
More territories are under negotiation, Barmack told Variety.
That is hardly surprising. The figure of Wallenberg, and what he achieved, still moves down the decades when known, though he risks falling into oblivion.
“There are generations who know of Raoul Wallenberg’s life, deeds and incredible legacy, but to modern generations, he is a completely unknown figure from a forgone era,” said director Brad Rothschild. “We battled to get this film made so Raoul Wallenberg’s story and the magnitude of his accomplishments are never forgotten. Now, more than ever, stories like his need to be told.”
Early stretches of “Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction” are dedicated, naturally enough, to these accomplishments.
A scion of one of Sweden’s most powerful families, the Wallenbergs who owned some 40% of the country’s industry in the early 20th century, Wallenberg was born in Sweden in 1912, but moved to Budapest in July 1944 to lead a humanitarian mission, championed covertly by President Franklin Roosevelt’s Refugee Board.
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Wallenberg arrives five months after Nazi forces had begun to deport some 437,000 Jews from outside Budapest to camps such as Auschwitz. Taking advantage of Sweden’s neutral status in WWII, Wallenberg designed and issued 5,000 Shutzpasses, turning Hungarian Jews into Swedish citizens. He then went on to forge up to 20,000 more, bought protected houses for Jews, ran supplies and a hospital and arrived in person to pull Jews from death marches to extermination camps in Austria. His salvation is described in the doc-feature as the biggest rescue operation of Jews in WWII.
“Everybody that I have met had a story of Wallenberg – either saving them or saving relatives. He was the co-ordinator, the master conductor of humanity,” says Frank Vajda, saved by Wallenberg at age 9.
Brian Cox, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Lee Curtis on Why They Boarded ‘Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction’
“Raoul Wallenberg took a stand to protect innocent victims and for humanity,” echoed Cox, who plays Jacob Wallenberg, who thought the world of his grandson, dreaming of his having. A brilliant banking career. Wallenberg “suffered the fate of many great figures in history who courageously did the right thing and paid dearly for it. Raoul Wallenberg is a man we must never forget, and I am humbled to be part of this film, telling his story and cementing his legacy,” Cox added.
More intimate connections are often also at work explaining the involvement of its stellar cast and producer Alex Ruthizer, for whom “Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction” has been a passion project.
“As someone with both Jewish and Swedish roots, Raoul Wallenberg’s story has always held a deep, personal meaning for me,” said Gyllenhaal. “His courage – the way he risked everything to save thousands of lives – is something I profoundly admire. To have the chance to give voice to someone who made such a powerful impact, yet has remained largely unheard for so long, is an honor that I carry with a full heart.”
“I am the proud granddaughter of Emmanuel Schwartz, my father Tony Curtis’s father. I am proud that my family’s name is linked to the restoration of Dohány Street Synagogue in Budapest. My great grandparents and grandparents and I hope my parents would both be very proud and pleased that I am aligning with the story of Raoul Wallenberg and his legacy, bravery and courage under fire. Today, this film and this story is crucial,” said Curtis.
“I was inspired to make this documentary after discovering a deeply personal connection to Raoul Wallenberg; both he and I are University of Michigan alumni. And that connection went on to shape the project itself, as nearly our entire filmmaking team would also be Michigan graduates, equally inspired by Wallenberg’s sacrifice,” said producer Ruthizer.
Ratcheting Up the True Crime Tension: What Happened to Wallenberg?
In the doc feature, Curtis voices Wallenberg’s mother who, when he disappeared, seemingly without trace, dedicated her life to writing letters to the Swedish government, to Truman, even to Khrushchev, begging the then Soviet head of state to find him, or find out what happened to him.
After 34 years of fruitless battle, Maj von Dardel and Fredrik von Dardel, Wallenberg’s step-father, committed suicide in 1979. “They couldn’t take it any more,” says their great grandson in the doc-feature.
Wallenberg was arrested under suspicion of being a U.S. spy, everybody agrees. “The question was not why he was arrested. The question is why he was not released,” says biographer Ingrid Carlberg, half way through “Raoul Wallenberg: Missing Inaction.”
The doc feature is “like a modern crime series set in the world of WWII,” said Barmack. In true crime fashion, it entertains, to only finally discard, or build on several mystery solutions.
One, the simplest, is that Wallenberg refused to be turned into a Soviet agent, signing his death sentence.
Yet “Missing Inaction” hardly rests its case there. Another contention is that the Swedish government, not wanting to rock the boat with the not so-far-away Soviet Union, never did as much as they could to get Wallenberg back. The doc feature records a news report on Taj Erlander, Swedish prime minister during much of Wallenberg’s imprisonment, admitting as much, conceding that his government had failed one of its greatest citizens by not pressing hard for his release.
Yet the most major explanation for Wallenberg’s fate lies elsewhere, and it is this that gives the doc feature its novelty and its powerful final half hour.
“I’ve followed the Wallenberg mystery for years. When I saw the new sources of information that the filmmakers had uncovered, I knew I had to support this project,” said Jeff Sagansky.
“Over the decades, countless books, biographies and films have explored the life and legacy of Raoul Wallenberg. But only ‘Missing Inaction’ shatters long-held myths to uncover the definitive truth,” said director Brian Mait.
He added: “Drawing on more than a decade of our own extensive research, while building upon the work of those before us, our film delivers what history has long denied, closure to one of its greatest unsolved mysteries: the ultimate fate of Raoul Wallenberg.”
The truth, and it is very cogent, delivers a sucker punch.
From Variety US