70 years after the Nazism far Right is rising and anti-Semitism is back in Europe. As a "Visual Artist" used my camera to make two Short Contemplative Holocaust Films to educate the younger generation and make them think. I try to reach as many people I can especially but not only Art film and Slow Cinema lovers. I decided to choose real historical locations because I wanted my audience not simple just watch my film, but deeply think about what the Holocaust was in Europe during the WWII. Though the murdered people "many of them were children" not appearing directly in the film but indirectly their spirits and memories are there. Their bodies were shot into the icy Danube River or gassed in the morgue beside the crematorium.
These two films paying tributes to the Victims using an unusual film language. I hope my film can reach different nations and generations and arouse the interest especially for the the younger generations and they start asking questions from their parents, grandparents, relatives, etc... where were they and what did they do during the WWII. There are still a lot of secrets and taboos families don't talk about. I believe if people creates taboos around everything that was linked to the Nazism, they cut themselves off from their own history. Keeping these taboos unrevealed, helps those who are trying to falsify history and dividing nations for their own political interest. On the other hand all the people have to understand what Jewish people went through and why most of the survivors don't want to talk about.
Nationalism, xenophobia and antisemitism are raising again and we are All responsible to Stop it.
My first film "Requiem for the Forgottens" was filmed at the Danube bank in Budapest nearby the Hungarian Parliament. The shoes on the river bank are important elements of the film while pointing toward the huge chunk of floating ice.
"The Shoes on the Danube Bank is a memorial in Budapest, Hungary honor the people (mainly Budapest Jews) who were killed by fascist Arrow Cross militiamen in Budapest during World War II. They were ordered to take off their shoes, and were shot at the edge of the water so that their bodies fell into the river and were carried away. It represents their shoes left behind on the bank."
The second film "Fear" was entirely filmed in Auschwitz I. and Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland. It's a "Trilogy". I used "No camera movement" and long takes as in all of my previous films. It was minus six (-6) degrees Celsius outside and heavy wind. The film footage contains the outside view of two Crematoriums on both locations and also the view of the farther part of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, nearby the so called "Mexico section". I tried to shoot discreetly to connect the past to the present via my camera lens. The air was crisp and cool and strong wind was blowing across the snow covered Death Camp.
The first part of trilogy is about "Crematorium I. in Auschwitz". The second "middle" part was filmed in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. You can see the chimneys of the destroyed barracks through the electric barbed wires. The last part of the film is focusing on the Crematorium II. in Auschwitz-Birkenau. The sky is blue like probably at that time when the camp was operated under the German Nazi regime, but you can still feel the burnt smell of the bodies and hear the endless screaming of the people via the whistling wind.
Though in the previous years I visited the Yad Vashem, The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Israel and even the Killing Fields and S21 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, making the decision to film in Auschwitz was not an easy task. That was the first time I visited the death camp. I tried to light a candle but was very windy, so I mourned for the Six Millions of Jews and for All the victims of the Nazism.
Click here to watch Requiem for the Forgottens
and click here to watch"Fear"
