Gray Matter

Deep in the basement of the former Spiegelgrund children’s clinic in Vienna is a room lined with shelves. Until 2002, they were filled with over 700 specimen jars, containing the brains of children with physical or mental handicaps which were systematically murdered under the Nazi “euthanasia” program, led by Dr. Heinrich Gross. In April of 2002, Joe Berlinger traveled to Vienna to film the burial of the preserved brains of the euthanasia victims, in a surreal public ceremony presided over by Austria’s president. Hearing that the 89-year-old Dr. Gross was still alive and in seclusion somewhere near Vienna, Berlinger was spurred to learn more about this man and how it was possible that he had evaded justice for so long.
Screening Schedule

No physical screenings scheduled.

Script: Joe Berlinger, Michael Bonfiglio
Cinematography: Bob Richman, Robert Winkler
Editing: M. Watanabe Milmore
Sound: Edward O’Connor, Bruno Pisek
Producers: Joe Berlinger, Sidney Beaumont, Michael Bonfiglio
Format: BetaCam SP Color-Β&W
Production Country: USA
Production Year: 2004
Duration: 59
Social Justice Award – Santa Barabara FF, USA

Joe Berlinger

Filmography

1989 Outrageous Taxi Stories
1999 homicide: Life on the Street
2000 D.C. (TV)
2000 Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
2003 Judgment Day: Should the Guilty Go Free (TV)
2004 Gray Matter
2007 Iconoclasts: Sean Penn – Jon Krakauer (episode from TV series)

Joe Berlinger & Bruce Sinofsky
Selected filmography

1992 Brother’s Keeper
1995 The Begging Game
1996 Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
1998 Where It’s At: The Rolling Stone State of the Union (TV)
1999 Revelations: Paradise Lost 2
2000 Fan Club (TV)
2002 One Who Day
2003 Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
2006 Ten Days that Unexpectedly Changed America (TV)
2007 Addiction (TV)