The young Israeli director Yael Reuveny
moves to Berlin in search of family history.
Her deceased grandmother Michla and the
latter's brother Fei’vke Schwarz lose trace
of one another amongst the horrors of the
Second World War and the Holocaust.
Michla survives and moves to Israel in the
belief that her brother died whilst interned
at a concentration camp. At the cemetery
of a Brandenburg village Reuveny finds the
grave of a certain Peter Schwarz, who died
in 1987. Yael quickly discovers that this is
none other than her great-uncle Fei'vke.
Having survived the war he married a German,
with whom he had three children and
thus remained in the homeland of the enemy.
It would appear however that brother
and sister just missed each other at Łódź
train station shortly after the war. Why?
Didn't Fei'vke want to contact his family?
Yael Reuveny talks of dealing with the
past, pain and the suppression of uncomfortable
truths. Three generations of a
family torn apart are suddenly forced to
come to terms with forever evolving family
constellations, starting with the first
generation of Michla and Fei'vke, then the
children, Yael's mother and Peter Schwarz's
children, a former National People's Army
soldier from Cottbus and his sister. And
then there's the grandchildren; Yael herself,
who has made a home for herself in Berlin
and Stephan, who studies Jewish studies
and dreams of moving to Israel.
DCP | Farbe / colour
Yael Reuveny
Andreas Köhler
Cesar B. Fernandez, Alfred Tesler, Nilly Kalmar, Idan Shemesh, Dovilas Meilus
Hauschka
Black Sheep Film Productions
Made in Germany Filmproduktion
Richard Wagner Str. 12
50674 Cologne
Germany
Tel:+40.221.27 26 36 11
Fax:+49.221.27 26 36 99
mel@madeingermany-film.de
www.madeingermany-film.de
Yael Reuveny - – born and raised in Israel, she studied at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television Schoolin Jerusalem. Since 2005 she has lived inBerlin, where her activities include working on documentary films for the JewishMuseum. TOLDOT HA’MENUTZACHIM saw her win the 2010 FilmFestival Cottbus Discovery Award.
KLEINE MIRIAM’L (2005, short)
TOLDOT HA’MENUTZACHIM (2009, doc, Discovery Award Cottbus 2010)