Abraham Ravett's films weave together archival World War II footage
and his own 16mm recordings of interviews with family members. These
experimental shorts investigate the hardships his mother and father
endured during the Holocaust and reflect on the filmmaker's evolving
relationship with his parents.

Thursday July 17, 7:30PM
JCC East Bay
1414 Walnut St.
Berkeley, CA 94709
510.848.0237

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/34824
$5 members, $8 general

Half Sister
United States, 1985, 22 minutes, English

At twenty-six, Abraham Ravett learned that his mother had previously
been married and lost her family at Auschwitz, including his
half-sister, Toncia, who was killed when she was six years old. Half
Sister is a cinematic amalgam of memory and imagination, inspired by
Ravett's conception of a life that would have been.

In Memory

United States, 1993, 13 minutes, English

In this non-narrative short, footage of Lodz Ghetto life is juxtaposed
against the chanting of "El Maleh Rachamim," a plea to God to let the
souls of those "slaughtered and burned" find peace. The message of
this tribute to members of Ravett's family (and to all those who
perished under Nazi occupation) is "may their memory endure."

The March
United States, 1999, 25 minutes, English

Utilizing a series of recorded film interviews he conducted with his
mother—a survivor of the infamous Auschwitz Death March—Ravett details
her recollections of that experience in this short, which meditates on
time elapsed and the fragility of personal memory.

Program notes adopted from the National Center for Jewish Film

Born in Poland in 1947, Abraham Ravett was raised in Israel and
emigrated to the USA in 1955. He teaches filmmaking and photography at
Hampshire College.***
This evening will feature a post-screening discussion on Ravett's work
by San Francisco State professor Bill Nichols.

Co-presented by the SF Cinematheque