JIFF: Vishniac

The Story

“Superb retrospective of the work of a groundbreaking photographer” — Haaretz 

When Roman Vishniac began to photograph Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, he did not know he was documenting their final moments. A veritable Renaissance man with interests in biology, physics, and art history, he was one of the first to use photography as an instrument of documentation. With the rise of anti-Semitism in Russia, his homeland, he fled to Berlin, only to flee again to New York when the Nazis came to power. In all that time, he never put down his camera.

Director Laura Bialis and producers Nancy Spielberg and Roberta Grossman (Reckonings, Who Will Write Our History), interview Vishniac’s daughter, who grew up in her father’s shadow, to explore the complex life of a man who rose to become one of the world’s best-known nature photographers. The film features his stunning photographs for Life magazine, alongside tragically heartwarming stills of life in Jewish towns just before the Holocaust, as famously depicted in his book ‘A Vanished World.’

Rating

Unclass15

Duration

93 min

Director

Laura Bialis