Out of the Ashes

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Out of the Ashes
Directed by	Joseph Sargent Uncredited: George Cukor Sam Wood
Produced by	David O. Selznick
Written by	Novel: Michael Morpurgo Screenplay: Sidney Howard Uncredited: Ben Hecht David O. Selznick Jo Swerling John Van Druten
Starring	Christine Lahti Beau Bridges Bruce Davison Jonathan Cake Jolyon Baker
Music by	Max Steiner
Cinematography	Ernest Haller
Distributed by	Showtime New Line Cinema (2003 re-release)
Release date(s)	December 15, 2003
Running time	153 min
Language	English
Budget	$3,900,000 (estimated)
Gross revenue	$390,500,000
Followed by	Scarlett
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

For other uses, see Out of the Ashes (disambiguation).

Out of the Ashes is a movie that was released by Showtime. It has a running time of 113 minutes and an MPAA rating of R.

[edit] Plot

This powerful, politically charged cable TV movie was based on the memoirs of Hungarian gynecologist and Holocaust survivor Gisella Perl. Having spent the last year of World War II in charge of the woman's infirmary at Auschwitz, Perl (played by Christine Lahti) hopes to leave her living nightmare behind when the Russians liberate Auschwitz. But when she applies for American citizenship in 1947, she is hauled into military court to explain the extent to which she "collaborated" with the Nazis during the war. The U.S. officials are especially disturbed by the number of illegal abortions Perl performed at Auschwitz without her superiors' knowledge. But as Perl struggles to explain to her relentless interrogators (the explanation taking the form of extended flashbacks), she terminated the lives of the unborn to save about a thousand pregnant women from the Nazi gas chambers. Continually, Perl flashes back to her days in Auschwitz, and, during the course of the movie, meets influential figures from that time. Filmed on location in Canada, the UK, and Lithuania, Out of the Ashes made its Showtime network debut on April 13, 2003. Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide.