Housewitz & Captured – Double Feature at the Jewish Film Festival Berlin | Brandenburg

In Captured, Batya Wolff, together with Arnoud Holle­man, approaches her father through the media of film and photo­graphy. The question that moves her is: How can I free myself from a war that was over before I was born? Her father, Max Wolff, started photo­graphing straight after the end of the war to keep the trauma of survival at bay and to establish his own narrative. The family archive, consisting of thou­sands of photos and many hours of cine film, becomes a third prota­gonist in the film along­side father and daughter. It testifies to how images can simul­taneously conjure up and block memory.

In House­witz, film­maker Oeke Hoogendijk tries to find the reason for her mother Lous' cate­gorical refusal to leave the house – for decades. In this film, what seems at first glance to be a completely normal scene – a woman in a living room watching tele­vision with her cat – gradually trans­forms into an oppressive reality in which the internal and external worlds are in conflict, and the “house mate” Holo­caust is ever-present.

The films will be shown in their original Dutch versions with English subtitles. The discus­sion will be in English.

In co­operation with the Jewish Film Festival Berlin | Brandenburg