March 24th at 8:00PM
Hotel Everest
39min
Directed and Produced by Claudia Sobral
In Israel and Palestine, the road to peace is a steep climb. How do you overcome decades of fear and bloodshed? How do you combat current events that tear both sides even farther apart? For three activists, one Israeli, one Palestinian and one American, the challenges seem insurmountable. And yet they try to see and understand the humanity in “the other” and forge connections that promote empathy, understanding and, in their wildest hopes, peace. Hotel Everest is their story.
Claudia Sobral is a cultural anthropologist and documentarist. Family Stories are the backbone of her work. For the past 15 years, Sobral has been focusing on family stories as a way of understanding our shared humanity. From the geographically segregated LA communities to descendants of Nazis and Holocaust survivors, to Israelis and Palestinians peace activists her passion is examining a broad range of experiences, contexts, and places, with a deep respect for the existence of the “other” in all its complexity. Alongside her documentary work, Sobral has over 15 years of experience in the field of museology and community arts in New York City and Los Angeles. Most of the projects she curated celebrate diversity and foster greater interaction and understanding among people of different racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds. Hotel Everest is a natural evolution of her work.
German Shepherd
10min
Directed by Nils Bergendal
based on an interview with David Paul
As a Jew growing up in Baltimore, David´s vision of Germany was shaped by the stories of his Holocaust-survivor mother; later in life, he reflects on whether it is possible to overcome this history. Simple in aesthetics yet potent in philosophical introspection, this animated documentary poses difficult questions about the human capacity to forgive unimaginable evil acts.
Nils Bergendal is a photographer based in Sweden. His main medium are artist books and exhibitions. Occasionally he produces films. German Shepherd, his latest short film, was screened in more than 50 festivals worldwide, and was Oscar qualified after winning “best animated short” at the Cinequest film festival.
David Paul is an attorney based in New York City. In his day job, he conducts labor law hearings at the office of labor relations. On the side, he is involved in producing and writing short films. He is the narrator of German Shepherd and is currently working on a follow up to that short film. His future projects include a lighthearted film about matzoh ball soup as well as more serious film about the appalling lack of justice meted out to Nazi war criminal‘s post World War II.