Bruxelles-transit

In one of the first postwar films in Yiddish, director Samy Szlingerbaum excavates his childhood through his parents’ immigration to the “promised land” of Belgium after WW-II and their subsequent failure to adjust. Weaving together haunting footage of postwar Brussels and astounding black and white photography, this film gestures at surrealist and avant-garde cinema to portray his - and his family’s - poignant longing for a sense of home, and, alongside that, European Jewry’s overwhelming isolation after the war. (New York Jewish Film Festival)