Documentary project, now shooting, is based on Christopher Browning’s Ordinary Men.

Austrian director Stefan Ruzowitzky, who received the Foreign Language Oscar in 2008 for The Counterfeiters, has returned to the subject of the Holocaust for his first ever documentary which began shooting in the Ukraine on Monday.

The documentary essay Das Böse – Ganz Normale Männer also features reconstructed scenes which will see the film’s DoP Benedikt Neuenfels developing a special visual language. Historical archive footage will also alternate with interviews with such internationally respected Holocaust researchers as Père Patrick Desbois, Christopher Browning  and Robert Jay Lifton.

Based on Christopher Browning’s bestseller Ordinary Men, Ruzowitzky’s film focuses on a seldom treated chapter of the Holocaust by posing the question of how really normal people could become war criminals and how quickly people are prepared to give up all traces of humanity for conformity and uniformity.

The production by Wolfgang Richter’s Darmstadt-based docmovie and The Counterfeiters’ Aichholzer Film has been co-produced by public broadcasters ORF and ZDF with backing from HessenInvestFilm, the German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and the Austrian Film Institute.

Apart from locations in the Ukraine, the film will also be travelling to Hanau, near Frankfurt, Bremen and the US for further shooting.

Ruzowitzky’s US-based thriller Deadfall, starring Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde, and Charlie Hunnam, is being released theatrically in Germany by StudioCanal under the title of Cold Blood on November 22.