Out of Competition

GRAY MATTER



Joe Berlinger

Country of production: USA/France
Year: 2004
Language: German/English
Mins: 59

Production company: Third Eye Motion Picture Company, @radical.media, Multimedia France Productions
Producers: Sidney Beaumont, Mike Bonfiglio, Rachel Dawson
Cinematography: Bob Richman, Robert Winkler
Editing: M. Watanabe Milmore
Sound: Edward O’Connor, Bruno Pisek
Music: Wendy Blackstone

Source: @radical.media
435 Hudson Street, 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10014, USA
Tel.: 212-462-1590
Fax: 212-462-1600
e-mail: berlinger@radicalmedia.com


In April of 2002, a funeral was held to bury the remains of over 800 children "euthanized" in a Vienna hospital during World War II. The victims had physical or mental handicaps or in some cases, simple “behavior problems.” Their brains had been kept as “specimens” for further experimentation. Gray Matter tells the story of Dr. Heinrich Gross, a former Nazi and the alleged murderer of these children, who rose to prominence after the war as Vienna's leading forensic psychiatrist. Filmmaker Joe Berlinger's search for Dr. Gross, now 89 and living as a free man in Austria, explores the difficulties of coming to grips with a society's past. Berlinger explores the circumstances that protected Dr. Gross from criminal repercussions and allowed the brains to be used for research until the late 1990s. Rooted in the past but continuing to unfold in the present, the film illuminates issues that continue to resonate today as many societies struggle with histories of trauma and abuse. Confronting these disturbing legacies guards against repeating the past.

Joe Berlinger is an award-winning filmmaker, journalist and photographer. Berlinger is a member of the DGA, WGA, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Berlinger’s articles and photographs have appeared in numerous regional, national, and international magazines and newspapers around the globe, including ArtForum, Film Comment, and Aperture magazines.

Selected Filmography

Gray Matter (2004)
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster (2004)
Revelations: Paradise Lost 2 (2000)
Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1996)
Brother’s Keeper (1992)
Outrageous Taxi Stories (1989)

SATURDAY, APRIL 2, 2005 AT 1.00 PM. / GALLERY THEATRE