31st Hof International Film Festival 1997

JECKES – DIE ENTFERNTEN VERWANDTEN

31st Hof International Film Festival 1997

Directors: Jens Meurer & Carsten Hueck
Documentary | D | 1997
100 min

31st Hof International Film Festival
1997

‘Jecks’ is the name of the Jews of German origin now living in Israel. The film offers a different portrayal than one might imagine: Meurer and Hueck don’t treat the difficult relationship between Germans and their ‘distant relatives’ in Israel warily but approach the people they talk to with ease and candour. The film reveals the Jocks’ wit, their ready responses, their gift for entertaining, but also their sadness and their tragic dimensions.

The holocaust forms part of this portrayal, but the film centres on the jecks’ love of life, not on their fate as victims. It is a document of the film makers’ lively, touching and thoroughly amusing encounters with seven impressive personalities; it tells of the unbiased encounter of two generations who share the same language and history but who stand on different sides of the abyss.