Mein Leben Teil 2

My Life Part 2

On my 18th birthday, my mother handed me a piece of paper on which she had written 10 points that she wanted to pass on to me in adulthood. Item one read: ′The purpose of our lives is to evolve towards perfection. Nothing that is created and good is ever thrown away. Everything builds on previous achievements.

You are descended from Joseph′s brother Levi, who lived 3,000 years ago.′ My mothoer collected and archvied her own life. I inherited it and made it into a film that is primarily about perception, my legacy and addressing history." Angelika Levi

"The film is a box within a box. On the outside there is the story of her family and the story of her mother′s life. but it soon becomes apparent that the filmmaker has ordered her mother′s records in such a way that she is using the archive to reflect on what needed to be suppressed or displaced and what has to be put right: the grandmother′s, mother′s and daughter′s sensitivity to the ′German situation′, the power of the generation of perpetrators and collaborators to say what is and is not true, and their descendents, whoare apparently enjoying the privilege of not having to consider their family′s past. It is a sensitivity deemed pathological by the majoritarian society in order to distract attention away from itself." Madeleine Bernstorff

Source: German films Service & Marketing GmbH