Directors Statement
Inheritance is not quite a work of fiction. It is a dramatization of my own experience days after the death of my Grandfather where my father and my brother found a dusty old box while cleaning out his things. Inside they found the holocaust photos which are so prominently displayed in the film. They called me immediately, and sent me copies. I asked for them, though I wasn’t sure if I truly wanted to see them. While my Grandfather didn’t do anything as dramatic as writing us a letter as he does in the film, I felt that we were meant to find these photos and share them with the world. I could feel the gentle hand of my Grandfather encouraging me to make this film. He as well as these images haunted me from that day through the completion of the film, when I finally felt a sense of peace.
I want to thank my Grandfather, Anthony Cuoco, for his bravery, his example, and our freedom. I have done my best to honor him and all the men who served and witnessed this atrocious crime, as well as the victims themselves who toiled for years in those camps. I hope the film lives up to his and their expectations and in the end its intended purpose. As I wrote in the screenplay, “this cannot be forgotten. It cannot happen again.”
- Paul Cuoco | Director
