The national cemetery Mount Herzl in Israel. Every Saturday morning the same procession: carrying plastic chairs and some food, a group of elderly people passes by the grave stone of the precursor of political Zionism, in order to get comfortable in the shade of a large pine tree. The “Mount Herzl Academy” holds its meeting. Over a period of five years, film-maker Tali Shemesh followed the group, whose purpose – according to its set rules – is to prevent isolation in old age. During their meetings, the members engage in discussions of cultural and contemporary historic issues. At the focus are Minya – the rather reserved and silent grandmother of the film-maker – and Lena, Minya’s dominant sister-in-law. The two women couldn’t be more different, yet destiny has brought them close to one another. With a great amount of narrative confidence, the film moves between the group members, dying one by one, and Lena’s personal drama, standing for the trauma of all those, who survived the Nazi-terror.
With her film “The Cemetery Club” the film-maker succeeded in painting a touching, very personal und unexpectedly humorous picture of the Holocaust generation, never seen like this before.
(Katalog DOK Leipzig)
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