Out of Competition

OUT OF THE FOREST
Mekivun Ha’Yaar



Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef, Yaron Kaftori Ben Yosef

Country of production: Israel
Year: 2004
Language: Russian, Polish, Lithuanian, Hebrew, English
Mins: 90

Production company: Cicero films Productions
Producer: Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef, Yaron Kaftori Ben Yosef
Cinematography: Eytan Harris
Editing: Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef
Sound: Maxim Segal

Source: Cicero films Productions
9 Sumo St’
Tel-Aviv, Israel. 69708
Tel: 972-3-6475674
Fax: 972- 3- 6478760
e-mail: cicero1@bezeqint.net


“Friday July 11, 1941, the weather is nice with some warm wind blowing. Only a few clouds are in the sky. Shots were heard coming out of the forest.”

These are the opening words in the diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole living in Ponar, a village in Lithuania. From 1941 until 1944, more than 100,000 people, most of them Jews, were killed in Ponar. Sakowicz decided to secretly write down what he heard and witnessed. Altogether he documented 835 days of the genocide. Using Sakowicz’s diary as a primary source, the filmmakers tell the story of people who lived in the backyard of a mass murder site. It’s a story about neighbors and community in the hardest of times; about how different communities – Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews – see the same horrifying events totally differently. The film is built as a collage, using the accounts of locals, the testimonies of victims who miraculously escaped death at Ponar, the written diary, and images of Ponar today. There is no archival footage, nor images of corpses or blood, but rather sensitive questioning and a discreet camera that succeeds in penetrating the superficially quiet surface of the village.


Limor Pinhasov Ben Yosef born in Israel in 1972. Graduated of Sam Speigal, Jerusalem Film School and Sorbone, Paris. Studies of art philosophy and France language.

FILMOGRAPHY

Out of the Forest (2003)
Holiday Flowers (2001)
Sophie Calle in Jerusalem (1999)

Yaron Kaftori Ben Yosef was born in Israel in 1963. Director, producer and screenwriter. Graduated from Tel-Aviv University Film & TV and History.

FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR

Out of the Forest (2003)

THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 2005 AT 5.30 PM. / FACET CINEMATHEQUE
FRIDAY, APRIL 8, 2005 AT 6.00 PM. / BLOCK CINEMA