Asaf Ofek, filmmaker: Declaration of Intent

Our film is meant for the third or fourth generation, for an audience that did not know survivors closely, or not at all. A generation that consumes media in a different way: it waits for it to appear in the palm of their hand. As I do not believe it is possible to understand "The Holocaust" – it is too big an event for any human being to understand – I want to focus the story on one single hiding place, in which 16 people lived. I want the viewer to get to know them well. Perhaps to identify with one or two of them, a little like watching a reality show, (please forgive me for the example), in which you cheer for one or two characters per season.

Through this connection to the specific story, to real people with all their complexities,
the viewer will be able to learn about their experience in the Holocaust, and
maybe understand something about the Holocaust.
The main characters are youths, 16 or 17years of age, or in their early
twenties, young people who managed to escape the death threatening them
outside the hiding place. What does it feel like, to be separated from your
family? How do you live in constant fear of death for five years, death that
awaits everyone, at any time? What did they do there, in the hiding place, for
two and a half years? Youngsters who want to devour life, imprisoned in a
locked place for so long, and how does it affect their life afterwards?

On the other hand, why does Wladimir Riszko, a twenty year-old Ukrainian,
decide to risk his life for a group of Jews, some known to him and some of
them strangers? He marries one of the survivors and brings a child into this
terrible world at war. Why? For love? For money? Or for ideology? And at
what cost? Because he did pay.
The film joins a relatively new trend in Holocaust documentation, a personal
one – following one specific story, that projects onto a whole period. Like
"eva.stories", Ari Folman's animated version of Anna Frank's diary, or the
book "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr, that tells the story of
two children, one German and one French, both non-Jewish, each of whom
experience the war in their own way.
I try to pull the viewer into a detective story happening here and now, with
some parts on a computer screen on Zoom, using short, rhythmic editing and
joining together testimonies and stories of people in an unknown situation. A
glimpse into a hiding place/pit that is hell and family nest at the same time,
and from which came several couples and two children.
Since the main characters of the story are youths, I hope to interest a young
audience as well, and awaken identification with the characters, and so
connect to the story.

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Film language

When I met Sara, she was already in the midst of the process. Part of the
discoveries had already happened. She knew the names of the survivors, and
was working on finding their children.
Parts of the film were shot on Zoom (mostly the people interviewed overseas),
and although the meetings are moving and important for the advancement of
the plot in the film, their quality is that of the laptop belonging to the
interviewee. (Very upsetting for a filmmaker who wants to choose lenses and
adjust lighting).
On the other hand, it is a language, the language of the times. This form of
communication characterizes the time of shooting the film. The time that
awakened Sara's urge to start investigating the story told in the film, and
therefore is the visual language used in the film, at least in part.
When I started to edit the film (tests, rough cuts of the interviews and
meetings), I felt that it is not enough, the story told by the children, members
of the second and sometimes the third generation who tell the stories they
heard, along with the alienation of the computer. I missed the intimacy, a way
to identify with the heroes of the story, who aren't even present in the frame.
I felt the frame was cold. Usually, in films about the Holocaust and memorial
films, illustrations are added, or artistic shots, drawings or animation that
change somewhat the atmosphere of the film and bring visuals to the "talking
heads".
Everyone does this, and sometimes it even benefits the film. But I had a cold
film, and wanted to connect the speakers and give the viewers characters they

can identify with. I decided to add another language to the film – one that I
know – dance.
Alongside the film we will create a modern dance that tells stories or scenes
from the life in the"pit". The dancers will be members of a professional youth
dance group, who will portray the characters in the film. 17-18 dancers, each
in the role of one survivor.
We will integrate sections of the dance performance into the film – a kind of
video art. In addition to the artistic aspect of the dance, these sections have
another function: difficult stories emerge from the interviews already shot.
These are stories we cannot or do not want to include in the film, so as not to
hurt the speakers and the memory of their loved ones. But on the other hand, I
do want the viewers to know that more details exist, that there is a subtext I
cannot tell them in words, but I can tell them in dance.
Yes, it's a little complicated – a film shot partly on Zoom, a Holocaust detective
story edited in a current style (no edited interviews), that combines sections of
dance as part of the plot and the advancement of the story.
I believe that this combination, in proper balance and precise dosage, the
priority being to tell the story, will make our film more understandable and
adapted to a younger audience.