Documentary About Holocaust Survivor and Hollywood Filmmaker Premieres at Tribeca Film Festival

Shiryn Ghermezian

Jack Garfein in the trailer for “The Wild One.” Photo: YouTube screenshot.

A documentary about the life of Jack Garfein — a Holocaust survivor, Broadway and film director, and Actors Studio co-founder — had its world premiere on Saturday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

“The Wild One” is narrated by Willem Dafoe and a teaser trailer for the film was released last week.

The documentary traces Garfein’s life from his upbringing in Czechoslovakia, his family fleeing Nazi persecution, his experience surviving Auschwitz and other concentration camps, and his face-to-face encounter with Nazi SS physician Josef Mengele, who performed medical experiments on Jewish inmates and prisoners. The film also explores his arrival in New York in 1946 at the age of 16, his partnership with Hollywood icon Lee Strasberg, marriage to actress Carroll Baker, and friendship with Marilyn Monroe.

Garfein directed controversial films, particularly “The Strange One” (1957) and “Something Wild” (1961), which addressed themes of violence, power, and racism in post-war America.

Paris-based filmmaker Tessa Louise-Salomé — the documentary’s director, co-producer and co-screenwriter — said in a statement that when watching Garfein’s films, she was “immediately seduced by the darkness and complexity of his characters, by the modernity of his directing style, by his sheer audacity as a filmmaker.”