Honorable Mr. Morgenthau

The Sedona International Film Festival is proud to present the one-day-only Northern Arizona premiere of “Honorable Mr. Morgenthau” on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 4:00 p.m. at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre.

Meet the filmmaker! Writer, director and editor, Hilan Warshaw, will be in Sedona to host the film and do a live Q&A discussion after the screening.

A powerful story of bigotry, loyalty and courage which sometimes feels ripped from today’s headlines, “Honorable Mr. Morgenthau” is a documentary about U.S. immigration policy during the Holocaust — as told through the lens of one American’s extraordinary experience.

Throughout most of the 1930s and World War II, the United States government deliberately kept the influx of European Jews to America well below America’s official immigration quota for that part of the world. This policy — rooted in a variety of political concerns, as well as frequently transparent anti-Semitism — left millions with no haven from the Nazi terror, and emboldened Hitler to transition from a policy of Jewish emigration to extermination.

Few had a closer view of these troubling events than Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. The only Jewish member of the Cabinet, and a devoted personal friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Morgenthau helped craft the New Deal economic policies that saved countless Americans from the Great Depression. A proudly assimilated and non-observant Jew, he was careful to stay neutral about Jewish issues — knowing that FDR did not take kindly to advisors who “pull(ed) any sob stuff” regarding refugees.

Morgenthau gradually became more disturbed about what he saw around him. Finally, his conscience — as well as the unexpected influence of an extraordinary woman — forced him to act, with consequences no one could foresee.

The film eschews many usual documentary techniques such as expert interviews and is composed almost entirely of primary source footage and documents, supplemented by original cinematography — allowing viewers to experience these events immersively as people of the time did.

Today, when anti-Semitism and divisions over immigration are again on the rise, Honorable Mr. Morgenthau offers the thought-provoking tale of a man caught in the headlights of an unprecedented horror — in an America that sometimes seems not unlike our own.

“Honorable Mr. Morgenthau” will be shown at the Mary D. Fisher Theatre on Sunday, Nov. 15 at 4:00 p.m. with filmmaker Hilan Warshaw present for a live Q&A discussion.

Tickets are $12, or $9 for Film Festival members. For tickets and more information, please call 928-282-1177. Both the theatre and film festival office are located at 2030 W. Hwy. 89A, in West Sedona.