Holocaust heroics at Sydney Jewish Museum
Directed by Jimena C. Puente-Treviño, the film is set in Nazi Germany in 1936 and is a celebration of ingenuity and courage in the face of adversity.
THE Sydney Jewish Museum (SJM) will host the Australian premiere screening of international award-winning short film Andante Ma Non Troppo on Sunday, December 12.
Directed by Sydney-based, Mexican-born Jimena C. Puente-Treviño, the film is set in Nazi Germany in 1936 and is a celebration of ingenuity and courage in the face of adversity.
Under the Third Reich’s Nuremberg laws, Jews were forbidden to leave the country with valuables of any kind.
This intriguing, joyous and true story involves Jewish-German musician, Felix Robert Mendelssohn – Felix Mendelssohn’s grandson – on the German-Swiss border, attempting to escape from the Nazis by cycling across the border with nothing but his Stradivarius cello.
Puente-Treviño researched the historical facts of the film with the aid of the SJM more than 10 years ago and it was produced in France with an international cast and crew in 2008.
The film has won several international film festival awards, including the Best Fiction Short film award at the Festival du Film de Strasbourg, the Best Director Award at the Granada Film Festival, and the Best Screenplay award at the New York Short Film Festival.
Having not yet found its way back to Australia until now, the museum is proud to host its premiere in the presence of its award-winning filmmaker, Puente-Treviño.
She has recently worked – under a professional development grant from Screen Australia – as assistant to Melbourne-based director Danny Ben Moshe on his documentary, presently in post-production, Revenge: My Dad the Nazi Killer?
The film screening will be followed by a live script reading by local actors of the director’s next documentary, 20.04.45.
The script is inspired by true events based on the story of Michal Wionczeck, a Polish Jew forced underground in Nazi Germany. In a daring resistance plan to smuggle photographic evidence of the Mauthausen concentration camp to the international press, Michal will risk all for the precious negatives to reach their destination.
Written by Puente-Treviño, 20.04.45 has already been shortlisted in three prestigious international script writing competitions.
The script has captivated a host of professionals in the film industry and is being developed for production in association with UK producer Jo Austin at Candid Films in Sydney. A short Q&A will follow the reading.
The screening is at 2.30pm.
Tickets free/booking essential: sydneyjewishmuseum.com.au
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