Providing a lens into genocide through film
FOURTEEN films from seven countries are screening at the Holocaust and Genocide International Film Event at the Jewish Holocaust Centre in Melbourne this week.
LEXI LANDSMAN
FOURTEEN films from seven countries are screening at the Holocaust and Genocide International Film Event (HOLAGIF) at the Jewish Holocaust Centre (JHC) in Melbourne this week.
The event, which runs until August 12, features films of various genres that shed light on the Holocaust and other genocides.
JHC president Pauline Rockman said: “In tribute to survivors of the Holocaust and all other survivors of the world genocides past and present -— those who have witnessed unspeakable horrors and atrocities -— our aim is to honour, to commemorate, to reflect and to remember the many millions of people senselessly murdered globally and to prevent the unspeakable from ever occurring again.”
One film, Path to the Past, directed and produced by Melbourne-based videographer Sean Meltzer, follows the story of 86 Australian and New Zealand year 11 students accompanied by three Holocaust survivors from Melbourne on their visit to Poland and Israel in the 2009 International March of the Living (MOTL) at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“The three Holocaust survivors, who all came from Lodz, gave a perspective of growing up in a place like Lodz. We went to the houses they grew up in and they told us anecdotes,” said Meltzer, who has documented five previous MOTL events in a voluntary capacity.
“It just gives you a perspective you don’t usually get and that’s what’s unique about MOTL. It engenders a great feeling about why we are there and about how important passing on this knowledge to the next generation is.”
Po-Lin: Slivers of Memory made its Australian premiere at the event. Po-Lin, which translates to “here we rest”, was made by non-Jewish Polish director Jolanta Dylewska.
The film reconstructs societies of 1930s Poland using amateur film footage and unique archival images.
Films Pray the Devil Back to Hell, L’Affaire Finaly; Hidden Children, Yodok Stories, The Holocaust Tourist, Bottle in the Cellar and Adele’s Wish are also making their Australian premieres at the event.
This year marks 25 years since JHC was established by survivors of the Holocaust, and the first HOLAGIF event at the centre.
The event runs until August 12 at Classic Cinema, Elsternwick and at the Jewish Holocaust Centre Auditorium, 13-15 Selwyn Street, Elsternwick. Enquiries: (03) 9528 1985.
The films at HOLAGIF
Adele’s Wish (USA 2008)
Bottle in the Cellar (Israel 1994)
Hidden Sorrows — The Persecution of the Romanian Gypsies during WW2 (USA/Romania 2005).
I Have Never Forgotten You (USA 2007)
L’Affaire Finaly; Hidden Children (France 2008)
Path to the Past (Australia 2009)
Pray the Devil Back to Hell (USA 2008)
Po-Lin -— Slivers of Memory (Poland 2008)
Shoah by Bullet (France 2008)
The Armenian Genocide (USA 2006)
The Holocaust Tourist (Ireland 2006)
The World Was Ours (USA 2006)
We’ve Risen From the Ashes (Israel 2003)
Yodok Stories (Norway 2008)