Nathan-ism - drawing history at Hot Docs Film Festival

Nathan-ism

Directed by Elan Golod

Documentary - 79 min.

Screening at Hot Docs Hot Docs (Toronto) on April 30 at 6pm

Nathan-ism is a Documentary about a Syrian Jewish Soldier named Nathan Hilu who lives in New York City who is what is called an "Outside Artist". He has been documenting his time during the WWII  Nuremberg Trials.  For over 70 years using Sharpies,  crayons and glue.  Nathan,  a lonely man in his 90's draws from what he says are memories of guarding the Natzi war criminals at the time of their trials.  He is a lonely old man seeking validation and wanting people to know what he says is a true story.  He wants to have his stories and art validated.  The problem is the fact that he is in his 90's and it's hard to prove the facts because of a fire where the Army records were held so there is very little proof to fact check.  Some details were found to be true and some could not be confirmed.  Nathan's drawings are compared to historical archival footage and documents. How much is memories versus what time does to memories after many years distanced from the actual events.

 

Nathan is a compelling character who spends all of his time quickly scribbling words around cartoon-like drawings that try and tell the stories that he says he was there to witness.

The film is told using Nathan's interviews, animation of Nathan's style of drawings, his drawings and archival footage.  

The documentary was sensitively created by Director Elan Golod.  The story is very intimate, told with respect and empathy and painting a picture of how the Holocaust and the atrocities need to be remembered by future generations.  

We must never forget so that history doesn't repeat these crimes.

About the documentary:

The Yad Vashem - The World Holocaust Remembrance Center has selected Nathan-ism to be, this year’s recipient of  -The Yad Vashem Award for Cinematic Excellence in a Documentary on the Holocaust with a monetary award. And it will play at DOCAVIV between May 11-20 as the Israeli premiere of the project from the USA.

Awarded

For the second year running, Docaviv and Yad Vashem will be presenting the Yad Vashem Award for an outstanding Holocaust-related documentary. This year, the $3,000 prize goes to “Natham-ism,” directed and produced by Elan Golod.

From the award committee’s justifications for choosing this film:
In precise and rich cinematic language, Golod manages to elicit in his viewer a wide range of emotions towards the outsider artist, to bring his works to life, and especially to raise awareness of the complexity of documentation, art, and testimonies about the all-human trauma that was the Holocaust.

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