UK Premiere: Rafting to Bombay

Dir. Erez Laufer I Israel 2008 I 70 mins I English and Hebrew with English subtitles

MUMBAI, INDIA, NOVEMBER 2008 ‘Arriving on a raft they found themselves in a magical land of elephants and spices where they could live till the end of the war.’ This was their experience in Mumbai sixty years ago and yet whilst filming his father revisiting the city, Israeli director Erez Laufer, finds himself caught up in the horrific terrorist attacks of 2008.

As the drama of the takeover of Chabad House unfolds, the Laufer family are caught up in this terrifying incident and, in contrast, recount how they found refuge in the city in the 1940s after fleeing the Nazis. Past and present collide as the family history unfolds whilst contemporary terrorism plays itself out on the streets around them. Three generations: grandmother, son and grandson are united in the telling of one story from a child’s memory of a hopeful and romantic journey, to the mother’s horrific reality, and fi nally to the cruel collision of past and present.

 

Screening with:

The Lives and Times of Abraham Kahn
Dir. Yaron Dahan I Israel I 2009 I 18 mins I Beit Berl College Film Department

Abraham Kahn was born at the side of a dirt track in a nameless small town in Silesia. He is an Ahasver-like fi gure, a wandering Jew.