What we see is a Dutch Jewish family first living unknowingly in the shadow of the Holocaust and then trying to cope with it still unaware of what it will finally mean. A shot of the film’s photographer Max Peerboom and his family we’ve come to know, cheerfully sewing and doing general preparation for a trip to a “work camp” when their destination was in reality the nightmare of Auschwitz adds a devastating dimension to our understanding of the Final Solution that nothing else, neither Hollywood, nor documentary, has been able to provide.

biografia

Péter Forgács (1950) media artists and independent filmmaker, based in Budapest. Since 1978 he has made more than thirty films and several media installations. He is best known for his “Private Hungary” series of award winning films and installations often based on home movies from the 1920s-1980s, which document ordinary lives that were soon to be ruptures by an extraordinary historical trauma that occurs off screen. Since the early 1990s Forgács’ video installations have been presented at museums and art galleries throughout Europe and America. In 2007 Forgács was awarded with the most prestigious Dutch Erasmus Prize for his notable contribution to European culture. In 2009 he represented Hungary at the Venice Biennale, exhibiting the Col Tempo – The W. Project installation.

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