Cameo Cinemas

Their father survived World War II. But the unsettling truth about how will change their family forever.

“Avi Nesher’s brilliant, haunting Past Life may be his best film yet – and that’s saying a lot.” - Jerusalem Post Two Israeli sisters unravel the shocking truth about their father’s murky wartime experiences in Past Life: a hybrid detective thriller and heart-tugging melodrama by award-winning filmmaker Avi Nesher. Unfolding in the late 1970s, Past Life centres on the daughters of Holocaust survivors, combative liberal journalist Nana and her younger sister Sephi, a soprano and aspiring composer. After a performance in West Berlin, Sephi is accosted by an elderly Polish woman who angrily accuses her father of murder. Traumatised by the startling encounter, the sisters launch an investigation, attempting to discover what really happened to their father in Poland during the war. As guilty secrets and troubling revelations are dredged up, Past Life boldly charts dangerous emotional territory still very much a part of the Israeli collective subconscious. Nominated for four 2017 Ophir Awards (Israeli Oscars) including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.Please note: select sessions will be screening with short film 'Still Alive.'Still Alive(Noch Am Leben) Australia / 2017 / Short / 8 mins / English Director: Anita Lester Synopsis: A mother tells her daughter the tale of madness born from the Holocaust. Through the ghetto to cradling her dying sister, Eva Nagler left her mind on the beaches of the Baltic Sea during one of the largest death marches of the war. Being only one of two survivors out of 60,000, we see vignettes of her perspective- distorted, romantic and affected by the muffled memories. Narrated by her great-niece, the story captures a snapshot of the cold reality of war and its terrible lingering aftermath.