Full Description
Following the death of his father, Israeli documentary filmmaker David Fisher
(Love Inventory, SFJFF 2001) discovered the diary that his father Joseph
kept during the harrowing times he spent in a labor camp during World War
II. Joseph’s words are a guide to David’s initial winter tour of Gusen, Austria
where the camp was located. The diary reveals a story that David never knew. His father seemed determined to record the horror around him, but even
though he survived, he was never able to reveal his experiences to his children. David’s siblings refused to read their father’s diary, so David initiates a road trip that becomes an extraordinary family psychodrama for them all at the very site of the concentration camp where their father was forced into slave labor as a young boy. Traveling in a van they laugh at themselves and question their own willingness to go deeper into their family legacy. Stunningly beautiful forests and meadows silently conceal the reality of their father’s experiences. As the Fisher family takes it all in, it becomes evident that the preservation of history and memory require active discussion among subsequent generations. And for the inheritors, victim and perpetrator, some are working hard to preserve memory while others choose to live only in the present.