The Dreyfus Affair

Written by Eve Wolf and directed by Donald T. Sanders, this multimedia production illuminates the controversial story of the 1894 treason conviction of Captain Alfred Dreyfus that had a decades-long reverberation in the political landscape of France and the rest of the world. The “Dreyfus Affair” evolved around the false arrest and imprisonment of the innocent Captain Alfred Dreyfus (1859-1935), a highly decorated French Jewish officer. Traumatic soul-searching ensued, and French society erupted into a fireball of anti-Semitism and political partisanship that called into question the very nature of French identity. Based on letters, diaries, memoirs, speeches, and accounts by the historical figures involved in the Dreyfus Affair, the poignant script includes text from Émile Zola’s newspaper article “J’Accuse,” unquestionably the most important piece of journalistic writing that transformed the private plight of Alfred Dreyfus into an “affair” of national and international significance.