Jewish writer confronts Holocaust denial

Jewish Australian screenwriter Naomi Lisner has completed a political thriller that tackles Holocaust denial through a contemporary lens, marking a significant departure from her previous work in drama and comedy.

The screenplay centres on an international conspiracy to murder Holocaust survivors in order to support claims that the Holocaust never happened, reflecting what Lisner describes as the connection between historical and contemporary forms of denial.

“I’ve seen a lot of Holocaust movies, as we all have, but I was thinking about October 7 and all the denials about it, and I thought, did the world change or was hate always brewing?” Lisner explained.

This question became her one sentence description of the plot to the screenplay, titled Bubbling Under the Surface, drawing parallels between those who deny October 7 and those who have always denied the Holocaust.

“I thought, I’m just going to write this screenplay where I can have this thriller around people who are killing off the remaining Holocaust survivors, like October 7, to say that it never actually happened,” she said.