Holocaust and Genocide International Film Event
The Australian premiere of the internationally acclaimed film ‘Po-Lin’ will screen at the Classic Cinema on Sunday 9 Aug at 7.30pm at the opening of HOLAGIF 09.
The award-winning film produced in Poland in 2008 and directed by Polish camera-woman Jolanta Dylewska, depicts Jewish life in 1930’s pre-WW2 where 3.5 million Jews and Poles co-existed within the culture and the lively and vital society that existed was nourished by one other. After the war ended, nearly the entire population had been murdered by the Nazis and had disappeared from Europe’s map leaving only a few hundred thousand survivors scattered around the globe.
The title ‘Po-Lin’ translates from the Hebrew words meaning ‘here we live’, and the film uses unique archival footage to breathe new life into the lost world of a past that WW2 has overshadowed. Using amateur film and still photographs taken by visiting families from America to their relatives in Poland in the 1920’s and 1930’s, the images are crafted together supported by powerful sound design. ‘Po-Lin’ was presumed by critics to be Poland’s contribution to the Oscars in 2008.
HOLAGIF 09 – The Holocaust and Genocide International Films event Aug 9-12 – will screen fourteen films from seven countries over four days and two venues and is a first for Melbourne. The event features current films of various genres that shed light on some powerful, some deeply moving and some inspirational narratives of the Holocaust of World War 2, alongside films revealing the plight of other communities who have and still are experiencing genocide in modern times.
This year marks twenty five years since Melbourne’s Jewish Holocaust Centre was established by survivors of the Holocaust. HOLAGIF 09 is a major event on the 25 years calendar and is a tribute to survivors who bear witnesses to the horrors of all genocides, and serves to commemorate the many millions of people senselessly murdered.
For full programming details, www.jhc.org.au.
