Bau, Artist At War Celebrates Marriage Even In A Concentration Camp

Opening in theaters nationally on September 26, starring Emile Hirsch and Inbar Lavi, Bau Artist at War dramatically proves that love and marriage is eternal even in the midst of the horrors of a Polish WWII death camp.

"I wanted to dramatically show how special marriage is, even when you take your vows surrounded by death," says Sean McNamara, director of last year's Reagan with Dennis Quaid, and who has also directed Sony Affirms' inspired Soul On Fire starring John Corbett, releasing October 10 based on the best-selling book.

"Joseph Bau and Rebecca Tannenbaum married in Krakow-Plaszow Nazi labor camp, and they stayed married for 54 years after the war," reports McNamara emotionally, "that just shows how powerful and beautiful their marriage was," he says. The Bau/Tannenbaum wedding first resonated in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, about Oscar Schindler saving a cohort of Jews marked for death at his factory, when Bau and Tannenbaum were briefly seen marrying in the movie.

"Our film is their story, their courtship and their life together within the confines of the Plaszow camp so we really see how their marriage was built," says McNamara who grew up in Los Angeles and began his career on Disney Channel with such hits as That's So Raven, Even Stevens and movie versions of Suite Life of Zack and Cody.

Emile Hirsche gives an award-winning performance as a Jewish forger, artist and designer employed by the brutal commandant Josef Liepold to draw a newly planned wing in the prison. He is simultaneously forging IDs for Jewish inmates helping them escape the prison. Hirsche as Bau, also draws comics for the prisoners, and his gift of art inspires his future wife with his colorful "lifegiving" creations she responds to in the gloomy setting of the death camp. McNamara cleverly intercuts these wonderful artworks within the film's action.

The Bau/Tannenbaum wedding first resonated in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List, about Oscar Schindler saving a cohort of Jews marked for death at his factory, when Bau and Tannenbaum were briefly seen marrying in the movie.

"We filmed very rapidly for 24 days in Canada, and our sets were developed from an old western set, but the designer was remarkable, and you are catapulted to Poland in 1944 in the camp," he says. "In my early career, I learned to film quickly and effectively because I worked with a lot of young performers and singers, from Raven Symone to Shia LeBeouf and Hilary Duff," says McNamara.

Some of McNamara's many "life celebrating" films include Spare Parts with George Lopez and Marisa Tomei about a group of low income Hispanic students competing in a national robotics contest, Hoovey, with Patrick Walhburton and Cody Linley, that tracks a 16 year old boy who has to recover from a brain tumor operation to lead a basketball team to the championship and Soul Surfer with AnnaSophia Robb and Carrie Underwood about professional surfer Bethany Hamilton's battle to overcome a shark attack that left her with a missing limb.

French actor Yan Tual, known to viewers as Father Alexander in Starz TV hit Outlander plays the brutal commandant running the concentration camp in Bau, Artist at War, and who at any moment can terminate the lives of any inmate within his glance.

"He represents those forces of evil in the world that work to destroy love, marriage, and the dignity of life," says McNamara, adding that after the war in 1945 Jospeh Bau was dramatically reunited with his wife, Rebecca, and then completed his college degree in Poland. "He eventually immigrating to Israel with her where he went on to start his own animation company. Bau is sometimes referred to as the 'Walt Disney of Israel,'" says McNamara. "He and Rebecca became parents of two children, and today they have a legacy of grandchildren. At the end of Spielberg's Shindler's List both Joseph Bau and Rebecca Tannenbaum are seen placing stones on Shindler's grave," he says proudly.

"It is a beautiful testimony to the love of a man and woman who met in circumstances none of us would want or could imagine, but there it is," says McNamara. "This is a story the world needs to see, to remind us of the power of hope, even in the darkest times."

Bau, Artist At War opens nationwide September 26 from Showbiz Direct.