Her visit is co-sponsored by Hamilton College Hillel; the Soref Initiative of the Hillel Foundation; Hamilton College Faculty for Women's Concerns and the Arthur Levitt Center for Public Affairs.
Shown on PBS in April, this personal narrative documentary includes segments of home movies made by the filmmaker's grandmother of German Jewish life in Berlin in the 1920s and 1930s. Ella Arnhold Lewenz 's filmmaking began as a hobby and evolved into a skillful chronicle documenting the rise of the Third Reich in Germany. She uses some of the earliest known color movie film to document life in Germany during that time.
The film focuses on important periods of the 20th century, starting with Ella's diaries written during World War I, leading to World War II, and picking up again following Ella's death, beyond the Cold War to current transitions in a newly reunited Germany. Forgotten in an attic for decades, the rediscovery of her grandmother's films and diaries set Lisa Lewenz on a personal journey to understand her grandmother's life and the lives of German Jews in Berlin. The film also includes Ms. Lewenz's trip to her family's former home in Berlin and interviews with her aunts.
Born in 1883 to one of Germany's most affluent Jewish families, Ella Lewenz eventually lost her home, citizenship, means and culture. She escaped Germany in 1938, when she fled for America. Bringing a camera and flms in her luggage, Ella continued filming until her death in 1954. Her films were forgotten as her family built new lives in America.
The film has been screened to sold-out audiences at the Sundance and Berlin Film Festivals, with additional festival screenings at the Vancouver, Edinburgh, Denver, Hamptons and d'Amiens International Film Festivals; at Lincoln Center in New York City as part of the Human Rights Watch Festival; the Florida Film Festival; Norway Shorts Film Festival; Cleveland International Film Festival.