Final Account is an urgent portrait of the last living generation of everyday people to participate in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich. Over a decade in the making, the film raises vital, timely questions about authority, conformity, complicity and perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians in never-before-seen interviews reckon with – in very different ways – their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history.
FOLCS offered an advance screening of Final Account ahead of a Conversation with Producer, John Battsek, and Associate Producer, Sam Pope, on May 19, 2021.
Watch Final Account: Advance Screening and Conversation here.
Sam Pope
Associate Producer
Born in Wiltshire, Sam Pope first met Luke Holland in 1997 at the age of eight when he moved with his family to the same small village in East Sussex. During his studies he developed an interest in film and photography, his work included in a collaborative exhibition with Photoworks and Glyndebourne Opera House and lighting the SXSW Grand Jury Award Nominee The Third One This Week.
Two months since graduating with a First from the Metropolitan Film School in 2010 and after a chance meeting, Sam began working with Luke to develop the Final Account Project: filmed testimony of witnesses from the Third Reich perpetrators side. For the next nine years he worked almost exclusively with Luke to build the collection of interviewees, develop the archive with their archival partners, cutting promotional films from the footage and eventually joining the editing team for Final Account.
John Battsek
Producer
John Battsek is one of the most successful producers in feature documentary filmmaking. Starting with Academy Award winning One Day In September, which Battsek conceived and produced, he has since been responsible for some of the most acclaimed documentaries in recent years.
Battsek’s most notable credits include Academy Award & BAFTA-winning Searching For Sugar Man, Academy Award-nominated Restrepo & Winter On Fire, Emmy-winning Manhunt: The Story Of The Hunt For Bin Laden, The Tillman Story & Forever Pure, BAFTA award-winners The Imposter and Hillsborough, Grammy-nominee Eric Clapton: Life In 12 Bars, and BAFTA nominated & Peabody winning Listen To Me Marlon.
In 2020, Battsek launched his new production company Ventureland with long time collaborators Kerstin Emhoff, Ali Brown and Paul Hunter.
Battsek is currently in production on a range of titles including films about Sir Alex Ferguson, Charlie Chaplin, the iconic Abbey Road Studios and the Thai Cave rescue mission.