holocaust – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

MOVIE OF THE WEEK February 17, 2023: A RADIANT GIRL

February 11, 2023March 5, 2023 Jennifer Merin A Radiant Girl, betsy bozdech, Cate Marquis, french films, holocaust, Jamie Broadnax, jennifer merin, leslie combemale, liz whittemore, loren koing, movie of the week'motw, nell minow, Pam Grady, Rebecca Marder, sandie angulo chen, Sandrine Kiberlain

There’s something incredibly poignant about watching someone happily going about their everyday life with no idea that history is coming for them, inescapably and inexorably. Such is the circumstance of Irène (Rebecca Marder), the young, exuberant, and Jewish main character of A Radiant Girl. That’s because writer/director Sandrine Kiberlain’s debut feature is set in German-occupied Paris in 1942, when being Jewish was quickly becoming very, very dangerous.

Reviews

A RADIANT GIRL – Review by Jennifer Merin

February 8, 2023February 11, 2023 Jennifer Merin A Radiant Girl, french films, holocaust, movie of the week'motw, Rebecca Marder, Sandrine Kiberlain

French writer/director Sandrine Kiberlain’s stunning first feature, A Radiant Girl, is an intimate reveal of the daily life of nineteen year old Irene, who lives with her family in a comfortable apartment in a well-to-do Paris quartier. Lovely Irene is bright and personable and pretty. For her, the future seems full of possibilities. She is hungry to experience life and she sets about doing so with appealing carefree abandon. She is passionate about theater, curious about love, finds joy in gathering with friends. She is a thoroughly engaging ‘every girl’, and you will enjoy her as she enjoys her life. But she is a Jew in Paris in 1942, and her future is…engangered.

Reviews

SHTETLERS – Review by Emma Badame

January 31, 2023February 2, 2023 Emma Badame documentaries, Eastern Europe, holocaust, iron curtain, Jewish traditions, Katya Ustinova, Shtetlers

Community is an essential part of understanding who you are and where you fit in. As the world expands and grows ever more chaotic, there’s comfort and calm to be found in the strong ties that bind. They lift us up, give us purpose, and support us. But what happens when your community disappears? Forced apart or scattered to the wind by circumstance. That’s the question at the heart of Katya Ustinova’s debut feature documentary, Shtetlers.

Reviews

FOUR WINTERS – Review by Valerie Kafrin

September 9, 2022September 11, 2022 Valerie Kalfrin documentaries, Faye Schulman, Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WW2, holocaust, Julia Mintz, Luba Abramowitz, Michael Stoll

In a time where audiences know the basic details of the Holocaust — thanks to school lessons, books, or films — the documentary Four Winters: A Story of Jewish Partisan Resistance and Bravery in WW2 still strikes a harrowing chord. Here, eight men and women share riveting and intimate stories about losing their loved ones and then forging resistance regiments in the forests. They were among more than 25,000 Jewish partisans who killed Nazis and their collaborators from 1940 to 1944, also wrecking bridges and derailing trains to disrupt the German war machine. Four Winters is an absorbing and emotional testament to a little-known aspect of the Holocaust, and a much-appreciated record of resistance.

Reviews

THREE MINUTES: A LENGTHENING – Review by Beth Accomando

August 12, 2022August 12, 2022 Beth Accomando Bianca Stigter, David Kurtz, documentaries, Helena Bonham Carter, holocaust, Nasielsk, Three Minutes – A Lengthening

The three minutes of the title refers to a home movie shot by David Kurtz in 1938 in a Jewish town in Poland. The footage is presented as the only moving images left of the Jewish inhabitants of Nasielsk before the Holocaust. Filmmaker Bianca Stigter constructs the documentary exclusively from those three minutes of home movies – some in color, some black and white, all silent. She slows the images down, freezes moments, and zooms in for closer inspection. In some ways it plays out like a police procedural as the identities of some of the people are discovered and tiny details are used to determine where the footage was shot and what was going on.

Reviews

CHARLOTTE – Review by Leslie Combemale

March 23, 2022March 24, 2022 Leslie Combemale animation, Charlotte, charlotte salomon, Eric Warin, holocaust, Julia Rosenberg, Keira Knightley, Marion Cotillard, Tahir Rana

Jewish-German artist Charlotte Salomon lived through Hitler’s rise to power, and was captured and sent to Auschwitz, where she died the day she arrived. This chronicle of her life, which is comprised of 769 paintings created between 1941 and 1943, is one of the most important bodies of work in the 20th century, but much like the art of so many other female artists, it has been all but erased from history.

Festivals Reviews

THE SURVIVOR (TIFF2021) – Review by Leslie Combebale

September 16, 2021September 17, 2021 Leslie Combemale Barry Levinson, ben foster, Hertzko Haft, holocaust, The Survivor, TIFF

It’s strange to say that a film based around the Holocaust is hopeful, but it’s true. Barry Levinson’s The Survivor is based on the real life story of Hertzko Haft, a jewish boxer who survived Auschwitz by fighting 76 brutal life or death matches against other Jewish prisoners, only to carry that trauma into his postwar life. As Haft, Ben Foster is the best he’s ever been. The Survivor is hopeful, in part, because Levinson has a way of finding the balance between darkness and light in his movies, and in part because the Jews of the world didn’t come out of the Holocaust without reaching for hope.

Festivals Reviews

WHERE IS ANNE FRANK (TIFF2021) – Review by Leslie Combemale

September 14, 2021September 19, 2021 Leslie Combemale 2021 Toronto International Film Festival, Ari Folman, holocaust, TIFF, Where is Anne Frank

We are told in Where is Anne Frank’s prologue that writer/director Ari Folman’s parents were sent to Auschwitz the same week as famed diarist Anne Frank. That was part of the inspiration for this animated feature examining her life from the perspective of Kitty, the imaginary friend Anne chose as recipient of her feelings and experiences in her diary. Kitty magically materializes in the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, innocent of what happened to her dear friend. She must seek out the answers to her whereabouts. In that way, Folman sets up a clever and insightful way of both explaining the Holocaust to young viewers, and considering in what ways we are currently in danger of repeating history.

Reviews

OF ANIMALS AND MEN – Review by Maitland McDonagh

July 10, 2021July 10, 2021 Maitland McDonagh documentaries, holocaust, Jan and Antonina Zabinski, Lukasz Czajka, of animals and men, Teresa Zabinska-Zawadzki, warsaw zoo

Much of the documentary’s narrative will be familiar to viewers who have seen or read about Niki Caro’s 2017 fiction feature The Zookeeper’s Wife, but there’s a gut-punch factor that comes with documentary footage and first-person testimony. And overall Of Animals and Men is deeply, if not necessarily deliberately, intertwined with films that demand that the viewer think hard about his or her relationship with animals.

Movie of the Week Reviews

MOVIE OF THE WEEK February 8, 2019: WHO WILL WRITE OUR HISTORY

February 3, 2019February 13, 2019 Jennifer Merin 0 Comments adrien brody, betsy bozdech, holocaust, joan allen, loren king, marina antunes, maryann johanson, nell minow, Oyneg Shabes Archive, Pam Grady, roberta grossman, sandie angulo chen, Sheila Roberts, warsaw ghetto, who will write our history?

Every single Jew who died during World War II at the hands of Hitler and his Nazis had a story to tell — and the fact that so many of those stories died with them is an unfathomable tragedy. But some of their stories survived, including those preserved by the brave Polish Jews who risked their lives to create the Oyneg Shabes Archive. This astounding cache of documents and artifacts from the Warsaw Ghetto is the subject of Roberta Grossman’s moving, fascinating documentary Who Will Write Our History.

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