Canadian film producer Robert Lantos, in Toronto, on April 20, 2022.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
A quarter-century before Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist swept the awards-season circuit, another three-hour epic about the journey of a Hungarian-Jewish family through the horrors of the Holocaust debuted in theatres: Istvan Szabo’s Sunshine, which was produced by Canadian megamogul Robert Lantos.
Following three generations of a single family as they face assimilation and anti-Semitism – with Ralph Fiennes playing a different male protagonist across all three eras – Sunshine debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999 before going on the following year to play theatres across the world, eventually earning three Genie Awards, including Best Picture.
Now, 25 years later, Lantos is hosting a special anniversary screening of Sunshine at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto, with funds benefiting the Toronto Holocaust Museum and the Stand With Us Canada educational organization. Ahead of the Feb. 2 event, Lantos spoke with The Globe and Mail from Budapest about the legacy and renewed relevance of what he calls his most personal film.
Do you think that a movie like Sunshine – independently financed, spanning three generations, told across three hours, with an international cast – could have been made in today’s film landscape?
The quick answer would have been, if you asked me this question half a year ago, no. But then The Brutalist came along and proved that answer wrong. It was very difficult to make 25 years ago, and probably would be no easier today, but once in a while, a film like this does get made that goes against all the rules.
What were some of the biggest challenges that you encountered while making it?
The first obstacle was trying to convince Istvan Szabo that this could be made into a feature film. He had originally written it in Hungarian, intending to make it as a six-hour series in partnership with a German television network. My mission was to convince him that it could be done, that I could make it. And if you have one person who wants to make it, that’s all you need. But we had to reinvent it, rewrite it, reconceive it. The next obstacle was how to cast it – initially I thought it would require three different actors to play three different generations of the same family. But then I thought it would be more challenging, and you would have more emotional investment from the audience, if the same actor played all three. Very conveniently around the same time, Ralph Fiennes came along. The rest is history.
I suppose every producer pours themselves into their work. But across your filmography, would you say that Sunshine is the film you were most personally invested in getting to the screen?
Very much. There’s parts of the story that closely parallel my family’s story, an uncanny resemblance. It’s a story that most Hungarian Jews would be familiar with. The second generation in the film, the character of Adam, becomes a fencing champion. And in order to represent Hungary in the Berlin Olympics, the character converts, changes his name and wins the gold medal. But it doesn’t save his life when the time comes. That is based on history, but my mother was a Hungarian champion athlete. But she didn’t change her name, and she wasn’t allowed to compete. I knew that I was the only one in the world who would make this film. And the big head start I had was that, at the time, I was the chief executive and largest shareholder of Alliance. I was in the position to say that we’ll underwrite the budget. We’ll take a risk.
Would you say that the risk paid off, financially and personally?
Financially, there might have been a modest loss at the end. But surprisingly, it could have been a lot worse. It sold all over the world, and with respectable results. It almost fully recouped its costs, but that wasn’t the reason why this film was made.
The history of the Holocaust is present in many of your films – The Statement, Remember, The Song of Names – but never so much as in Sunshine. How important, and perhaps painful, was it to explore?
I wouldn’t call it painful. I felt that everything that I had done prior to Sunshine had prepared me to focus on it – it gave special purpose to everything that had come before, including some bad movies or run-of-the-mill television series that I could barely watch, all of which had to be done because the rent had to be paid and the staff had to be paid. No higher purpose. But making Sunshine put all of that into perspective. At the premiere at Roy Thomson Hall during the film festival, my mother, my aunt and my two kids, they all thanked me. And that to me was the validation.
The film is being screened in Toronto just a few days after International Holocaust Remembrance Day. How much do you think Sunshine speaks to the current moment?
It would be nice to say that history doesn’t repeat itself, and we’re talking about the past and not the present. But that would be a lie. The uncomfortable truth is that there are parallels between the middle part of Sunshine, which is when the persecution of Jews became something that went unpunished, to today. When I made this film, I saw a renaissance in anti-Semitism in Western Europe, which was the trigger for making the film. But the cautionary tale has morphed into something real and palpable around us, in Toronto. It’s painful to say, because I love Canada and the country has been the salvation for my family.
So then by screening this in Toronto and by making it a fundraiser, do you see this as making a statement as well as a celebration?
I think that the film will speak for itself. I don’t want to sermonize, because I think that anybody who does see the film will see it with different eyes than 25 years ago. There will be shivering moments of recognition.
You’re in Budapest now working on the final touches of your long-in-the-works series Rise of the Raven, focusing on the 1456 Battle of Belgrade. When can Canadian audiences expect to see it?
We took it to [the television industry conference] MIPCOM in Cannes last year, and it was a triumph. It’s been sold in a lot of countries, and the rollout starts in Hungary this March. Canadians can expect it, at the earliest, in the fall. But the jury is out until it’s actually seen by the public.
You also have a film coming up called Maya & Samar, which was shot in Greece. But has there been any progress on David Cronenberg’s adaptation of his novel, Consumed?
He is writing, he’s adapting. As to when we’ll make it? It’s really up to him, at what pace he progresses, but I’m hoping we can make it early next year. It’s taken him this long to figure out how to do it right.
This interview has been condensed and edited.
Sunshine screens Feb. 2 at the TIFF Lightbox in Toronto (tiff.net)