“It’s much more fun to laugh than not to laugh,” Carl Reiner explains in the new trailer for “The Last Laugh.”

As fun as it is, laughter is also key to cultural and literal survival in this upcoming documentary from director Ferne Pearlstein (“Sumo East and West,” “Imelda”). “The Last Laugh” interviews dozens of Jewish comedians — including Reiner, his son, Rob, Sarah Silverman, Susie Essman, Harry Shearer, and Judy Gold — about the Holocaust, jokes, and Holocaust jokes.

As the doc’s official synopsis details, “The Last Laugh” “proceeds from the premise that the Holocaust would seem to be an absolutely off-limits topic for comedy. But is it? History shows that even the victims of the Nazi concentration camps themselves used humor as a means of survival and resistance. Still, any use of comedy in connection with this horror risks diminishing the suffering of millions. So where is the line? If we make the Holocaust off-limits, what are the implications for other controversial subjects — 9/11, AIDS, racism — in a society that prizes freedom of speech?”

Judging from the trailer, it appears that “The Last Laugh” will explore all of these topics — with a bevy of stomach-churning, fearless jokes along the way. The trailer shows Gold, playing it straight, asking, “If I was standing on line naked for the gas chambers… would I hold my stomach in?”

In an interview with Women and Hollywood, Pearlstein discussed her hopes for the film: “We want to provoke debate and discussion — to introduce these issues and stimulate a serious conversation about freedom of speech, our collective memory, and how to remember the past while keeping it vibrant.”

Shot on Super 16mm, the documentary features cinema verité footage of Auschwitz survivor Renee Firestone, interviews with influential comedians and thinkers, and “rare footage of cabarets inside the concentration camps themselves.”

“The Last Laugh” opens in NY on March 3 and in LA on March 17, with a wide release to follow. Check out the new trailer and poster below.