A new documentary film, “Still Life in Lodz,” by Polish-Jewish film director Slawomir Grunberg, portrays four generations of Jewish life in Lodz through the perspective of a still-life painting that belonged to a Jewish family and hung in their apartment from the end of the Czarist empire to the mass expulsion of Polish Jews in 1968.
The lives of the painting’s owners and their experiences are portrayed through interviews, archival footage and whimsical animation. The film follows Lodz Jews and their descendants as they return to Lodz to visit the apartment where the painting once hung. Among them are Lilka Elbaum, who lived in Lodz until 1968 in the apartment with the film’s titular still-life painting, and Paul Celler, whose mother survived the Lodz ghetto. Celler lives in Livingston, New Jersey, a city which is home to many Polish Jews and their descendants.
- Year2019
- Runtime75 minutes
- LanguagePolish
- CountryPoland
- Premiere3/12/2021
- RatingNot Rated
- DirectorSlawomir Grunberg
A new documentary film, “Still Life in Lodz,” by Polish-Jewish film director Slawomir Grunberg, portrays four generations of Jewish life in Lodz through the perspective of a still-life painting that belonged to a Jewish family and hung in their apartment from the end of the Czarist empire to the mass expulsion of Polish Jews in 1968.
The lives of the painting’s owners and their experiences are portrayed through interviews, archival footage and whimsical animation. The film follows Lodz Jews and their descendants as they return to Lodz to visit the apartment where the painting once hung. Among them are Lilka Elbaum, who lived in Lodz until 1968 in the apartment with the film’s titular still-life painting, and Paul Celler, whose mother survived the Lodz ghetto. Celler lives in Livingston, New Jersey, a city which is home to many Polish Jews and their descendants.
- Year2019
- Runtime75 minutes
- LanguagePolish
- CountryPoland
- Premiere3/12/2021
- RatingNot Rated
- DirectorSlawomir Grunberg