The David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies has today voiced its horror over the plans for The Passion of the Christ director Mel Gibson to produce a movie based on the genocide.

The Passion of the Christ, released in 2004, caused outrage in critics who claimed that the movie was anti-semitic. Gibson's new project revolves around the story of Dutch Jew Flory Van Beek, whose non-Jewish boyfriend hid her from the Nazis.

Gibson's father Hutton Gibson has openly stated that he does not believe the Holocaust ever took place.

Rafael Medoff, director of the David Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, says: "For [Gibson] to be associated with this movie is cause for concern. He needs to come clean that he repudiates Holocaust denial, and that he understands the Holocaust was not just another atrocity that occurred in the Second World War along with other atrocities."