Film review of Hiding and Seeking

Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust

a film by Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky (featuring Akiva Daum, Menachem Daum, Rifka Daum, Tzvi Dovid Daum and Honorata Matuszezyk Mucha)

First Run Features, New York, New York     © 2004     82 min. DVD

I first saw this film at the Parliament of World Religions in Barcelona in 2004. It impacted me deeply then, and I still think it's one of the very best films in our library.  A Jewish man, whose father denies or ignores his Judaism, and whose two sons are ultra-orthodox, learns his father was hidden by a family in Poland during WWII.

Can he learn enough about this from his father to find the Polish family?  Can he convince his sons to come on a trip to Poland?  Will the Polish family respond, and how?

Despite the dramatic context and emotions writ large, the film grapples with very human problems and emotions that we all face in smaller ways: intergenerational conflict, racial ignorance and mistrust, interfaith tolerance, regret, and forgiveness.  Very powerful, yet so human.

82 min. mostly in English, with some Yiddish and Polish with English subtitles as needed.  Beautifully filmed in New York, Jerusalem, and Poland. Highly recommended film.

-- reviewed by Jennifer Knight

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