True/False Films

War Against the Weak

In person: director Justin Strawhand

Imagine discovering that your long-dead mother was a prostitute or your ex-dentist a Nazi. Justin Strawhand's fresh and insightful adaptation of the Edwin Black book of the same name takes us back to the early 1900s, when scientist Charles Davenport was developing his theories on selective breeding, which set the groundwork for the American eugenics movement. Using creepy elements straight out of classic science fiction, Strawhand boldly illustrates the eerie links between Davenport's famous followers — including the Carnegies and Rockefellers — and Adolf Hitler. War Against the Weak is both a hugely unsettling history lesson, and a morbidly fascinating one. (CB)