What They Found

What They Found, Sam Mendes's first documentary, is a film which uses archive footage and first-hand testimonies  to tell the story of  two members of the British Army’s Film and Photographic Unit who accompanied the troops liberating Bergen-Belsen at the end of the Second World War for BBC Two and BBC iPlayer. The film will air on 7th April 2025 marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation. 

On 15 April 1945, British soldier-cameramen Sgt. Mike Lewis and Sgt. Bill Lawrie, members of the  Army Film and Photographic Unit covering the campaign in North West Europe, accompanied British troops to what they  were told  was a typhus hospital in Northern Germany, named Bergen-Belsen. When they arrived there, the full horrors of what was going on inside the camp were revealed to them and, through their footage, to the world - for the first time.   

What They Found is a documentary  film  produced by  Lightbox  in association with  Neal Street and Imperial War Museums.