Oct 3, 2022

Seventh Annual Screening the Holocaust Film Series

The Miami Jewish Film Festival and The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies, the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach, and the Holocaust Teacher Institute at the University of Miami are proud to announce their seventh annual Screening the Holocaust Film Series. For the first time in nearly three years, the free community program will return to an in-person and in-theater experience at the Miami Beach JCC, and will be complemented with featured speakers and talk-backs moderated by Dr. Miriam Klein Kassenoff, Education Director of the Holocaust Institute at the University of Miami.

The program kicks off on Thursday, October 20 with a special presentation of the internationally acclaimed film Three Minutes – A Lengthening, which premiered at the 2022 Miami Jewish Film Festival. Produced by Steve McQueen and narrated by Helena Bonham Carter, this one-of-a-kind documentary transforms rare color home-movie footage shot in 1938 Poland into a testament to victims of the Holocaust. The snippet of battered celluloid, meticulously restored, was nearly beyond saving, before rescue from a Florida attic. Examined with painstaking precision, every frame is exhumed to find evocative details amid the unsuspecting faces and bustling cobblestone streets. Following the film presentation, there will be an expanded discussion with Dr. Nikki Freeman, the new Education Director at the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach.

The Screening the Holocaust Film Series continues in November with a special presentation of Final Account, an urgent portrait of the last living generation of everyday people who participated in Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Over a decade in the making, the film raises vital, timely questions about authority, conformity, complicity and perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians in never-before-seen interviews reckon with their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history. Accompanying this presentation is a discussion led by Dr. Haim Shaked, Director of The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies.

The year-round series concludes in December with a presentation of Miami Jewish Film Festival 2021 film Winter Journey, notable for being the final screen role of legendary German actor Bruno Ganz. Based on NPR radio host Martin Goldsmith’s highly personal book detailing his search for ancestral history and homeland, this unique film artfully weaves past and present, sharing the stories of his parents, who were gifted musicians and could perform only as members of the Jewish Cultural Federation, a remarkable arts organization used by the Nazis as a propaganda tool. Leading the post-screening discussion is Danny Reed, Director of Cultural Arts at the Miami Beach JCC.

The Screening the Holocaust Film Series is a boldly themed cinematic event that will present a fascinating and diverse selection of film premieres exploring events, issues and personal recollections of one of recent history’s most defining episodes which brought forth the darkest, yet also the most noble aspects of mankind.

As was previously announced, the 26th Miami Jewish Film Festival will return on January 12-26, 2023 as a hybrid event featuring in-theater and virtual premieres of the most acclaimed and award-winning films of the year. You can find the complete Screening the Holocaust film program below:

Three Minutes - A Lengthening (2022)

Stunningly edited from a three-minute strip of 16mm color film shot in Poland in 1938, this compelling documentary provides a look into the lives of the inhabitants of a Jewish village that would be devastated by the Holocaust one year later. Following the film presentation, there will be an expanded discussion with Dr. Nikki Freeman, the new Education Director at the Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach. The film event will take place on Thursday, October 20 at 7:30pm at the Miami Beach JCC.

Final Account (2021)

Over a decade in the making, the film raises vital, timely questions about authority, conformity, complicity and perpetration, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians in never-before-seen interviews reckon with their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history. Accompanying this presentation is a discussion led by Dr. Haim Shaked, Director of The Sue and Leonard Miller Center for Contemporary Judaic Studies. The film event will take place on Thursday, November 17 at 7:30pm at the Miami Beach JCC.

Winter Journey (2020)

Based on NPR radio host Martin Goldsmith’s highly personal book detailing his search for ancestral history and homeland, this unique film artfully weaves past and present, sharing the stories of his parents, who were gifted musicians and could perform only as members of the Jewish Cultural Federation, a remarkable arts organization used by the Nazis as a propaganda tool. Leading the post-screening discussion is Danny Reed, Director of Cultural Arts at the Miami Beach JCC. The film event will take place on Thursday, December 15 at 7:30pm at the Miami Beach JCC.