14/02/2003 - Joris Ivens' widow makes an autobiographical film about her experience of a German concentration camp, seen through Anouk Aimée's eyes

Thirty years spent working with her husband left their mark on Marceline Loridan-Ivens. For her directorial feature debut, the widow of Belgian documentary-maker Joris Ivens chose a story with the picturesque title of La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux (The Little Field of Birches) about the German death camps. The story is loosely based on Loridan-Ivens’ personal experience of life (?) in a concentration camp and was screened in Special Events at the Berlin Film Festival.
Clearly this is an experience that Marceline Loridan-Ivens can never and will never forget. Her consummate skill as a documentary-maker is evident in the lingering tracking shots of the frozen fields of Auschwitz in Poland and despite her best efforts to distance herself from her subject, scratch the surface, and the pain the Loridan-Ivens feels is all there in the beautiful dark eyes of a magnificent Anouk Aimée.

“There can be no catharsis in similar circumstances. I tried to distance myself form the melodrama and avoided all exaggeration but the pain just kept rising in my throat. You simply cannot face the memories,” said the director. “My film is about the need to forget if you want to go forward.”
Marceline Loridan-Ivens is a film producer and distributor with Capi-Film and she also co-founded of the Joris Ivens Foundation. French film legend Jeanne Moreau helped her write the screenplay for La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux.
La Petite Prairie aux Bouleaux is a French, German and Polish co-production, produced by Mascaret Films , Cine Valse of Paris, Capi Films and Filmproduktion München, StudioCanal are handling the international sales.

(Translated from Italian)