First co-production with Israel
The depth and strength of evocation with which Ida Fink wrote her memories of the Holocaust is what motivated Uri Barbash (Beyond the Walls) to make Spring 1941 – a film based on one of the writer’s short stories. Shooting on the film – in and around Łódź – will last until mid-August.
If the Holocaust is close to the director’s heart it’s also because of the link between Fink’s biography and Barbash’s own father. Fink, imprisoned in the Warsaw ghetto from 1941 to 1942, finally left Poland for Israel in 1957, while the director’s father (also of Polish origin) fled the country to settle in Israel before the outbreak of WWII.
The script, written by Motti Lerner, does not focus too much on historical aspects, however. What most interests the director is the human side of the story, told from the point of view of a character, the musician Clara, who was the only member of her family to be saved from genocide.
After many years Clara returns to Poland to give a concert. Once she steps into the concert hall, she finds herself haunted by her personal experiences of the Nazi invasion that forced her to exile to the country where she was protected by a Polish peasant.
Clara is played by two actresses: Claire Higgins and Neve Macintosh (young Clara). Her husband is played by Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), who stars alongside Kelly Harrison, Mirosław Baka, Łukasz Simlat, Maria Pakulnis and Ewa Kuryło. Cinematography is by Ryszard Lenczewski and production design by Wojciech Żogała.
Spring 1941 has an estimated budget of $2.5m. The film’s production (Poland’s Opus Film and Israel’s Traxis Films) is supported by the PISF (Polish Film Institute) and the local Łódź government. It is scheduled for completion by March 2008.
Spring 1941 is the first Polish/Israeli co-production.
(Translated from French)
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