Film & Theater

In the organizer's words:

Accompanying program to "The Passenger"

Wed 16/10/24
The Zone of Interest
Film by Jonathan Glazer (USA/Great Britain/Poland 2023)
Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höß lived with his family in an apparent idyll, separated from the extermination camp only by a wall. Jonathan Glazer's film with Christian Friedel (Rudolf Höß) and Sandra Hüller (Hedwig Höß) shows the everyday life of a family that ignores the horror behind the wall of their garden, even though it is present in the smoke from the chimneys of the crematoria, the flying ashes and the distant cries of prisoners.

Wed 20/11/24
The Shadow of the Commandant
Documentary film by Daniela Völker(USA/Great Britain 2024)
How do you live with the guilt of a father who caused the deaths of millions of people? While Hans Jürgen Höss, the son of the camp commandant, spent a sheltered, almost idyllic childhood in his family's villa in Auschwitz, the Jewish prisoner Anita Lasker-Wallfisch fought for survival in the extermination camp. Daniela Völker's documentary focuses on the moment when the two came face to face eight decades later.

Wed 11/12/24
The Passenger [Pasażerka]
Film by Andrzej Munk (Poland 1963 - OmU)
Polish film director Andrzej Munk made the film "Pasażerka" based on Zofia Posmysz in 1961. As he tragically died in an accident during filming, the movie remained unfinished. In 1963, Munk's friend Witold Lesiewicz made a theatrical version that did not disguise its fragmentary character. Even in its incompleteness, this award-winning film is a unique document of an artistic confrontation with Auschwitz, which inspired Mieczysław Weinberg's work on the opera.

Wed 22/01/25
Treasure
Film by Julia von Heinz (Germany/France 2024)
In the 1990s, successful New York businesswoman Ruth (Lena Dunham) decides to travel to Poland to investigate her family's past. Her father Edek (Stephen Fry) only narrowly escaped being murdered by the Nazis. He has never spoken to his daughter about his experiences in Auschwitz. Now he accompanies her on a journey that shows how the shadows of Auschwitz still loom large in both their lives decades later.

Wed 19/02/25
The Passenger - Welcome to Germany
Film by Thomas Brasch (Germany/Switzerland/Great Britain 1988)
In this 1988 film, Tony Curtis plays a Hollywood director who returns to Germany for a film project in order to get to the bottom of his own past. As a minor extra, he had worked on a Nazi film during the war. His friend died during filming in an unexplained way. Thomas Brasch's film uses artfully stylized scenes to explore questions of guilt, betrayal and the search for truth.