Films

Six Million and One


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Israel-Germany-Austria  2011 93 min. DCP/HD Hebrew/English/German (English/ Hebrew/ French/ German subtitles)

Six Million and One completes Fisher's family trilogy started with critically acclaimed Love inventory (2000) followed by Mostar Round-Trip (2011).

"David Fisher uses his own life, and the lives of his close family members, as a kind of laboratory in which to explore family histories, solve family mysteries, and reexamine old but still powerful family memories. Funny, clever, honest, and always full of irony and emotional depth, his excellent trilogy, Love Inventory, Mostar Roundtrip, and Six Million and One, are classic examples of films that transform the intimacy of personal stories into the light and clarity of universal truths."  Alan Berliner, filmmaker NYC 

Coming January 27, 2014 on iTunes, Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, Playstation & Vudu. Available now on DVD at www.sixmillionandonethemovie.com
Synopsis:
Joseph Fisher's memoir was discovered only after his death. His children refused to confront it, except for David, the filmmaker, for whom it became a compass for a long journey. When he found it unbearable to be alone in the wake of his father's survival story and his struggle not to lose his sanity, David convinced his brothers and sister to join him in the hope that this would also contribute to releasing tensions and making them as close as they used to be. They, for their part, couldn’t understand why anyone should want to dig into the past instead of enjoying life in the present. In the dark depths of the tunnels, part of an Austrian forced labor camp, where their father had slaved during the Holocaust, illuminated only by flashlights, the Fishers seek meaning in their personal and family histories. As their deepest pains are exposed, they find themselves crying and laughing, in bitter-sweet scenes that give this personal film a rare sense of intimacy.

If you wish to have the director or one of the film's cast accompany a screening of the film please contact us via the following address:  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it


Festivals and Awards:
Haifa International Film Festival, October 2011 – World premiere
IDFA official selection, feature-length competition 2011 - International premiere - Top 10 in the Audience Choices
"A great film, really emotional, open and wonderful interaction. I am recommending it on tonight's IDFA talkshow." Late Producer Peter Wintonick, IDFA programming advisor and Media Talks team
"Filmmaker David Fisher makes an extraordinary journey with his brothers and sister to Gusen in Austria…The meticulous accounts of torture and of how fellow inmates died are odds with the bucolic scenes of Gusen today." Melanie Goodfellow, IDFA daily, November 19 2011
Dokfest Munich 2012 - Best Documentary Award
Jury citation:
"A remarkable film about one of the biggest tragedies in history: In a compelling manner, the film maker, David Fisher,manages to lucidly and efficiently combine an emotional family story with elements of universal questions in a surprisingly light and charming way – taking us all on a memorable and touching journey."
Krakow IFF 2012 - Silver Horn for the Director of the Best Feature Length Documentary
DOXA Vancouver 2012 - Honorable Mention
Crossing Europe FF Austria 2012 – Opening Film
Seattle IFF 2012 – US premiere
Muestra Film Festival Bogota, Columbia 2012
Minsk International Film Festival 2012
Louisville International Film Festival 2012
Cork Film FestivalIreland 2012
Exground Filmfest, Wiesbaden Germany, 2012
Macon Film FestivalGeorgia USA 2013

International Jewish and Israeli Film Festivals : Toronto, Montreal, San Francisco, Palm Beach, Boston, Philadelphia, Virginia, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Illinois Holocaust Museum, Washington DC JCC, Baton Roug, Melbourne, Hong Kong, London, Indian International Centre in New Delhi and more...

The film received the 2012 Israeli Ministry of Culture award for art works related to Zionism.

Theatrical Release and Special Events:
The film was theatrically released In Israel by Lev Cinema, In Austria by Thimfilm and in the USA by Nancy Fishman Film Releasing at the New York Lincoln Plaza cinema September 28, 2012 and at the Los Angeles Laemmle's Town Center October 19, 2012 .
The film is regularly shown at special events, Seminars and advanced studies that concern such topics as Holocaust diaries, memory and trauma and The Second generation to Holocaust survivors.
Screenings at:
The British Conference for Jewish Studies at the University of Kent in Canterbury UK July 7, 2013.
The American Psychoanalytic Association in NYC January 16, 2014.
The United Nations at Vienna during The International Holocaust Memorial Day - January, 27 2014.
The Cleveland Museum of Art March 12, 2014.
The 167 annual International American Psychiatric Association Conference NYC May 4, 2014.

Critical Reception:
"An emotional journey for these grown children, now in their 40s and 50s, who engage in sometimes heated conversations, several taking place on the actual sites where Joseph and other prisoners endured unimaginable suffering."
Stephen Holden, New York Times – September 27, 2012

"It proves a unique, highly personal approach to unraveling the endless mysteries of the Shoah."
Gary Goldstein, Los Angeles Times – October 18, 2012

"Why is it important to remember? This is the question that concerns not only David and his brothers, but also all of us. Because of this universal question the film managed to fill the movie theaters in Amsterdam… As psychoanalyst Paul Endo recently said... in a phrase that is for us all: 'Instead of being haunted by the trauma, it is necessary to pursue the trauma.' …Six Million and One" is a beautiful scar."
Eliane Brum, Revista Epoca, BRAZIL - November 21, 2011

"A heartbreaking and wryly humane film… Fisher's documentary, as indicated by its title, is a new twist on the over-worn truism that the devil is in the details. The film is a journey, like many others. But there’s an original and a subtle assessment of memory in Six Million and One. There’s one unforgettable shot in which a view of the concentration camp dissolves slowly into a row of neatly-kept houses in the same location. It takes you from the apocalyptic to the eerily ordinary... The Fishers joke, kibitz and quarrel... We’re reminded that history and memory require an active discussion among the later generations... A film, which seems destined for an extended life."
David D'Arcy on Film, Art Info blog, NYC - November 14, 2011

"It’s intense, emotional, oddly amusing and, in the end, surprisingly universal too."
Phil Harrison, London Time Out - February 21, 2013

"Contemporary filmmakers are refreshingly aggressive and direct in how they treat … delicate material, none more so than Israeli doc maker David Fisher. His powerhouse Six Million and One isn’t the first film in which he’s forced his siblings to confront their parents’ experiences during the Nazi era, but it’s the most brutally candid and unexpectedly funny.”
Michael Fox, KQED

Accolades:
"Magnificent. I laughed and cried, cried and laughed. It is very moving and very powerful. I learned a lot not only about the past, but about living with the past."
Michael Berenbaum, American scholar, rabbi, writer, and filmmaker who specializes in the study of the memorialization of the Holocaust.

“This understated and well-made film stands out among Holocaust documentaries because it raises important questions regarding generalizations about the transmission of Holocaust trauma to the second generation.”
Anna Ornstein, Professor Emerita of Child Psychiatry University of Cincinnati

Mostar Round-Trip

mostar

 Israel 2011. 73/52 min. DigiBeta                                            Hebrew, English, Serbo-Croatian (Hebrew/ English subtitles)f


Through a series of encounters, the camera reveals a great honesty and maturity,butalso moments of tension and conflict.d


Synopsis:
A year after 17-year-old Yuval leaves home in Israel to attend the UWC international high-school, situated on what used to be the frontline between the Croatians and the Bosniaks during the civil war in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina, filmmaker David Fisher, his father, follows. During three Round-Trips to Mostar, Yuval’s relationships unfold: with his father, his Israeli peers and his Spanish girlfriend, Neus. Although Yuval is far from home, this actually brings father and son closer together. Their talks reveal great honesty, maturity and openness towards one another. Footage from Yuval’s childhood resonates throughout and helps present their charming, yet sometimes troubled relations. Yuval: “You can’t expect me to feel at ease and develop intimacy when your camera is always around...”. Yuval and his roommate Salam, an Israeli Arab, have passionate political debates. Salam is a “playboy” and a charmer. No wonder Yuval brings him a sugar cube to bed, one morning after a bitter fight they had over the Israeli-Arab conflict. Far from home these youngsters learn to open up to other cultures and this changes their perception of their not so beloved neighbors. Yuval’s affair with Neus is heart-warming but doomed - because of his impending army service. This is during the 2009 Gaza War back home and Yuval voices his apprehension about the way the Israeli army is operating: “I didn’t believe in anything we did in Gaza. It all seemed like a huge bluff, just to show how strong our army is...”. At the end of this journey, David, as well as the viewers, will understand that two years in Mostar have actuallyprepared Yuval and his peers for a mature and challenging life as grownups.
Mostar Round Trip is the second film in the family trilogy created by David Fisher that also includes Love Inventory (2000) and Six Million and One(2011).h

If you wish to have the director or one of the film's cast accompany a screening of the film please contact us via the fallowing address: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Festivals:
Jerusalem International Film Festival 2011 - World Premiere
Montreal World Film Festival 2011 - International Premiere
Crossing Europe Film Festival, Austria 2012
Belgrade Documentary Film Festival 2012
Doxa Documentary Film Festival Vancouver 2012
Auburn International FF for Children and Young Adults, Australia 2012

Critical Reception:
"Almost a dozen years after his Love Inventory (2000) in which he told the world about his family and its problems, made the festival rounds, David Fisher is back behind the camera, and once again it is a family affair through and through. The film can't help stumbling over some of the most relevant and often disturbing issues of the moment."
 Dan Fainaru, Screen International

"This film is filled with warmth and love that doesn't only exist in the father-son conversations, but is truly felt as the film moves from one shot to another. The film is unique in the way that Fisher not only observes his maturing son and their strengthening relationship, but also the way in which a documentary film is woven and constructed until it reaches its final shape and form... a must see."
 Yehuda Stav, Yedioth Ahronoth

"A wholly worthwhile lesson in active parenting."
 Meir Schnitzer, Maariv

"Not surprisingly, at times Yuval found his father’s presence – and his father’s camera and camera crew – intrusive. Fisher was reminded of a long struggle between the two over making movies, and found clips of Yuval as a very young child, telling his father to stop filming and push him on a swing."
 Hannah Brown, Jerusalem Post

"A fascinating and personal film."
 Matan Shiram, Globes
 

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Love Inventory

Israel 2000. 90 min. 35 mm/Digibeta
Hebrew (English subtitles)

A story of five siblings looking for a lost sister
 who end up finding themselves.

Synopsis:
After the death of their parents, Filmmaker David Fisher feels that his family has grown apart and that his siblings are focused on their careers and relationships with their spouses and children. Fisher believed that a search for their sister, who was allegedly taken from their parents at birth, will help them bond. Fisher and his four siblings, whose parents were Holocaust survivors, set out on a journey that deals with both family dynamics and the history and establishment of the State of Israel. The siblings become amateur detectives, searching for any evidence that might lead them to their sister.

Love inventory is the First film in David's Fisher's family trilogy followed by Mostar Round-Trip and Six Million and One (2011).

The film was produced for Noga Communications Channel 8 with the support of The New Fund for Cinema and Television (NFCT) and the Israeli Film Council.

The film was broadcast on the PBS in the USA (Independent Lens), on ARTE (Grand Format) in Europe and on Channel 8 and also on YESDocu in Israel.

Festivals and Awards:
Wolgin award for Best Documentary at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2000 - World premiere
Ophir Award for Best Documentary by The Israeli Film Academy, 2000
Best Documentary award at the DocuNoga Contest, 2000
Merit Award at the Taiwan International Documentary Festival, 2001
Bronze Award at Worldfest Houston 2001
Berlin Film Festival, 2001 - International premiere
INPUT Television Conference in Capetown, 2001
Additional international film festivals:
Chicago Doc International
Seattle
Boston
Pennsylvania
Denver
DokFest Munich
Hong-Kong
Bangkok
CineManila
Jewish film festivals: San FranciscoVancouverToronto and more...

Critical Reviews:
“Love Inventory is a riveting documentary, both thematically and technically, that renders the lines between fictional and nonfictional cinema almost irrelevant. Winner of the 2000 Wolgin Prize for Best Documentary, film is structured as a multi-layered emotional journey taken by four brothers and one sister to find the grave of their brother, who died in infancy, and search for information about his twin sister, who disappeared shortly after their births in 1951” and concluded by: “Stylish and technically accomplished enough to compete with documentaries shown in major festivals around the world, Love Inventory is a gem that does Israeli cinema proud.”
Emanuel Levy, Variety, August 14, 2000

"The openness and authenticity of the five siblings in front of the camera made a lot of viewers weep and laugh all at once. It presented one of the festival's most beautiful and moving moments.”
Yehuda Stav, Yedioth Ahronoth, the morning after the film's world premiere at the Jerusalem International Film Festival july 17, 2000

“Director David Fisher granted a gift to the festival yesterday. His film Love Inventory is a charming and moving story, personal without being pressuring, embarrassing or voyeuristic.”
Irit Shamgar, Maariv, July 18, 2000

“Without resorting to over excitement and with a keen sense of loss but also of humor, the film builds the chronicles of a family that has to continue the struggle to survive and also stay united.”
Margarete Wach from the catalogue of the Berlin International Film Festival 2001

"Luckily for the forum's manager the Israeli film Love Inventory is one of Berlin International Film Festival Forum category's best films."
Hans-Jorg, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 2, 2001

"The film sensitively weaves the story of an intimate family history, both singular and banal, and ultimately universal."
Le Monde, April 6, 2001

“Shot on video and looking like a home movie, Israeli filmmaker David Fisher’s autobiographical effort turns into a crafty exploration of the meaning of family, individuality, mortality, and memory.”
Peter Keough, Boston Phoenix, September 6, 2001

“Pretentions, occasionally moving, intriguing, fascinatingly made and helps our understanding of ourselves, including the Holocaust topic which remains in the background.”
Nachman Ingbar, Achbar Hair, July 7, 2001

"In the final analysis love inventory is a story about just that – love – and is well told"
Barry Davis, The Jerusalem Post, July 7, 2000
5brothers

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