Following a crowdfunded restoration, the film of Hugo Bettauer's eerily prescient novel will tour Europe again as anti-Semitism is on the rise. At the film's release, Bettauer was doxxed by local media and murdered by a young Nazi soon after.
Via Atlas Obscura:
In the novel, and subsequent film, the city’s citizens initially celebrate the departure of the Jews, who had become political scapegoats for the city’s rising unemployment and prices. But there’s a happy ending, of sorts: As the economy begins to crash down, with theaters going bankrupt and other businesses suffering, a popular movement demanding the Jews’ return gains pace; the proto-fascist party in power falls; and the expulsion law is repealed. The film ends, however, with the revelation that the entirety of the plot has been a dream. The anti-Semitic Councillor Bernard awakens with the sudden revelation that the Jews, in fact, are a “necessary evil.”
Here's a version with Spanish subtitles:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8u63qiY9l4
• The Rediscovery of a 1920s Silent Film Predicting the Rise of Nazism (Atlas Obscura)
