''Witness 11'' is a 2012 short drama film directed by Sean Mitchell and starring Oleg Liptsin, Paul Guadarrama and Matt Shelton. It is based on the testimony of renowned German poet and playwright,

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a pl ...

, during the height of the 1940s

Red Scare A Red Scare is the promotion of a widespread fear of a potential rise of communism, anarchism or other leftist ideologies by a society or state. The term is most often used to refer to two periods in the history of the United States which ar ...

. The film was shot in 2012 at the

Berkeley City Club The Berkeley City Club was commissioned as the club house of the Berkeley Women's City Club, organized in Berkeley, California in 1927 to contribute to social, civic, and cultural progress. This private club is no longer restricted to women, and th ...

in Berkeley, California.

Premise

Called before the

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

. Brecht HUAC hearing (HUAC) during their notorious Hollywood TenCeplair, Larry (2011). Anti-Communism in Twentieth Century America: A Critical History. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger. p. 77. investigation, famed German playwright

must choose between betraying himself and his friends, and imprisonment. In the end, Brecht testified that he had never been a member of the Communist Party.

Cast

* Oleg Liptsin as

*Paul Guadarrama as

Robert E. Stripling Robert E. Stripling (circa 1910–1991) was a 20th-century civil servant, best known as chief investigator of the United States House of Representatives, House Dies Committee and its successor the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), parti ...

*Matt Shelton as Dalton Trumbo *Tatjana Dzambazova as Helene Brecht *Dean Enciroli as J. Parnell Thomas *Philip Estrin as Green *John Scacco as Rep. Vail *Steven Mann as Herbert Biberman *Fritz Zimmerman as Baumgardt *David Rosenthal as John Howard Lawson *Bret Grantham as Bartley Crum *Juliet Hilton as Barbara Brecht

References

External links

* Kickstarter-funded films 2012 films American drama short films Films set in Washington, D.C. Films about McCarthyism Films about writers Films shot in California Cinema of the San Francisco Bay Area American historical drama films 2010s historical drama films Films set in 1947 2012 short films 2012 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{short-drama-film-stub