Liat Benhabib

Memory in Motion: The Holocaust, Memory and Video Dance

When words are inadequate, the human body and the language of dance may be employed to tell stories and to transmit emotional content. American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist Maya Deren referred to dance on film as “choreography for the camera.” The Toronto-basedKaeja d’Dance company uses both the stage and video dance to investigate the representation of the Holocaust and the how it is remembered.   Two of their video dance productions, Zummel  (7 minutes, 1999)... Continue reading

“2 or 3 Things I Know About Him…” A Film by Malte Ludin

“Watching my movie gave them the courage to examine their connections to the Nazi horrors. No German can escape this; it’s an integral part of our society.”(Film director Malte Ludin, Germany) Hans Ludin was no ordinary German soldier, but the story of his family is typical. Malte Ludin, Hans’ son, was five years old when his father was executed in 1947 for war crimes. In his film, 2 or 3 Things I Know About Him(85 min., Germany, 2005), Malte Ludin attempts to confront family... Continue reading

"Girl Number 60427": Short Israeli Film Wins BAFTA Award

Girl Number 60427, a film by Shulamit Lifshitz and Oriel Berkovits from the Ma'aleh Film School in Jerusalem, has garnered the 2022 BAFTA Award in the Student Films category – the first Israeli film to win the prestigious award. The short film tells the fictional story of eleven-year-old "Reut," who finds her grandmother's wartime diary, in which she recorded the family's fate during the Holocaust. Girl Number 60427 is based on the actual diary of Lifshitz's grandmother, Shifra Balitzki... Continue reading