Britta Wauer: A rich film feast winds down
Ort: Toronto
Ereignis: Regisseurin Britta Wauer präsentierte als Gast des Goethe-Instituts Toronto ihren mit dem Publikumspreis der Berlinale ausgezeichneten Film „In Heaven, Underground“ beim Hot Docs Filmfestival 2011.
Hot Docs, Toronto’s annual feast of documentary films, comes to a close this weekend, well established now as a bookend to September’s Toronto International Film Festival, where documentaries also tend to loom large — especially for audiences seeking something a bit more offbeat, quirky and challenging than what we find in theatrical release the rest of the year.
[...] On Sunday evening at TIFF Bell Lightbox, there’s a return of In Heaven, Underground — the improbable tale of a Jewish cemetery in Weissensee, a suburb of East Berlin. It was established in 1880, when German Jews had achieved wealth and status as respected citizens of Germany. During the Holocaust, it was one of the few institutions that remained in Jewish hands and was not seized by the Nazis.
And now, having miraculously escaped destruction, it lives on as the largest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe. It’s amazing that it was not destroyed, and that it continues operating even after East Berlin was cut off from West Germany by a notorious wall that did not come down until 1989.
Today the cemetery is an oasis for wildlife, an attraction for curious visitors, and a place where the stories of people buried there can be remembered.
Britta Wauer’s film, almost disconcertingly cheerful, weaves many stories about the past — the people buried there, what draws visitors now, the groundskeeper, and an eccentric rabbi — into her film, which had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival — where it won the Panorama Audience Award.
This week after its first Hot Docs screening, it has been picked up by 7th Art Releasing, a distribution company based in Los Angeles, which has acquired North American theatrical rights and world TV rights to the film. [...]
Ereignis: Regisseurin Britta Wauer präsentierte als Gast des Goethe-Instituts Toronto ihren mit dem Publikumspreis der Berlinale ausgezeichneten Film „In Heaven, Underground“ beim Hot Docs Filmfestival 2011.
Hot Docs, Toronto’s annual feast of documentary films, comes to a close this weekend, well established now as a bookend to September’s Toronto International Film Festival, where documentaries also tend to loom large — especially for audiences seeking something a bit more offbeat, quirky and challenging than what we find in theatrical release the rest of the year.
[...] On Sunday evening at TIFF Bell Lightbox, there’s a return of In Heaven, Underground — the improbable tale of a Jewish cemetery in Weissensee, a suburb of East Berlin. It was established in 1880, when German Jews had achieved wealth and status as respected citizens of Germany. During the Holocaust, it was one of the few institutions that remained in Jewish hands and was not seized by the Nazis.
And now, having miraculously escaped destruction, it lives on as the largest surviving Jewish cemetery in Europe. It’s amazing that it was not destroyed, and that it continues operating even after East Berlin was cut off from West Germany by a notorious wall that did not come down until 1989.
Today the cemetery is an oasis for wildlife, an attraction for curious visitors, and a place where the stories of people buried there can be remembered.
Britta Wauer’s film, almost disconcertingly cheerful, weaves many stories about the past — the people buried there, what draws visitors now, the groundskeeper, and an eccentric rabbi — into her film, which had its premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival — where it won the Panorama Audience Award.
This week after its first Hot Docs screening, it has been picked up by 7th Art Releasing, a distribution company based in Los Angeles, which has acquired North American theatrical rights and world TV rights to the film. [...]
von Martin Knelman, Toronto Star, 7. Mai 2011
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