TAGLINE
“This cannot be forgotten. It cannot happen again.”
SYNOPSIS
Inheritance is a short film and labor of love based on director Paul Cuoco’s experience of learning that his Grandfather was a liberator at the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. It stars Harrison Young, Robert Olufs, and Richard Meese.
STORY
On the eve of his Grandfather’s funeral, a young man receives his inheritance. It is not a dowry of riches, but instead a simple manila envelope containing photographs and a letter. As the befuddled young man sifts through the worn and tattered photos he can not believe his eyes. The images are horrific. Image after image of dead bodies neatly stacked in rows. Ovens filled with half-burned human corpses. In shock, he slowly sifts past the horrible imagery to the letter and reads his Grandfather’s words, a powerful and impassioned recounting of that fateful day, April 11, 1945, when he and his company came upon the Buchenwald concentration camp.
Shot in 2001 using MiniDV Canon XL1 Camcorder, and grass-roots resources, this film and it’s companion film Glazed were the first films produced by Not Afraid! Originally conceived as a war Trilogy, Spoils of War the films were shelved during post-production due to the tragedy of 09/11. At that time, it didn’t seem appropriate to release these films. They were resurrected in 2004 and released as stand-alone films.
In 2022 with the advent of AI tools such as Topaz Video AI, Inheritance has been upscaled from SD to HD, and remastered for modern displays. The AI is not magic, and still looks like standard definition video in terms of detail, but it has sharpened and removed upscaling pixelation and is the best way to see the film on a modern LCD/LED/OLED display.
Grandfather: Harrison Young
Daniel: Robert Olufs
Father: Richard Meese
Written and Directed by: Paul Cuoco
Producer: Jeff Loach
Executive Producers: Daniel Cuoco, Al Loach
Director of Photography: Doug Delaney
Composer: John Swihart
Casting Directors: Jeff Paal, Jerry Whitworth
Assistant Director: Ethan Black
Camera Assistant: Cheuk Wong
Gaffer: R. Scott Marvin
Key Grip: John C. Dunne
Boom Operators: John Dunne, Ethan Black
Script Supervisor: Deanna Varscsak
Still Photographer: R. Scott Marvin
Editor: Paul Cuoco
Sound Designer: Sandra Holland
Sound Engineer: John Swihart
Primary Holocaust Still Photography by: Anthony Cuoco
Additional Public Domain Holocaust Still Photography courtesy of:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Winner – BEST FILM – Universal Studios Employee Fim Festival
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.”