ANN: University of Manchester Holocaust Memorial Day event: Free online streaming of Frank Beyer’s Jacob the Liar (GDR 1974) with live panel discussion and Q&A
Centre for Jewish Studies, University of Manchester Holocaust Memorial Day in collaboration with Manchester Reform Synagogue
Free online streaming of Frank Beyer’s Jacob the Liar (GDR 1974) with live panel discussion and Q&A
2 February 2022, 18.30-21.00 GMT
All welcome
Frank Beyer’s 1974 East German-Czechoslovak coproduction Jakob the Liar was unique in Eastern Bloc film and the original to Peter Kassovitz’s Hollywood remake of 1999 with Robin Williams. Having received national and international accolades, it was the only East German film ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. Scripted by the East German Jewish writer Jurek Becker, a child survivor of the Łódź Ghetto, and the Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen concentration camps, the film saw several aborted attempts as the director fell into political disfavour and Eastern Bloc anti-Jewish campaigns reached new highs. In straddling political and aesthetic divides, such as Beyer’s and Becker’s socialist beliefs and their probing into alternative modes of Eastern Bloc Holocaust memory on the one hand, and the film’s fantastical elements against the dictate of socialist realism on the other, Beyer’s film and its remake exemplify the historical specificities of Holocaust memory.
The discussion panel includes Jurek Becker biographer Sander L. Gilman, who is a distinguished professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences as well as Professor of Psychiatry at Emory University; Sabine Hake, who is Professor and Texas Chair of German Literature and Culture at The University of Texas at Austin; and the actor, director and author Blanche Kommerell, who garnered acclaim in her role as Rosa Frankfurter in Frank Beyer’s film. The panel will be moderated by Cathy Gelbin, who is Professor of Film and German Studies at the University of Manchester.
Register for this webinar in advance here. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.
Department of Drama | School of Arts, Languages and Cultures | University of Manchester | Manchester M13 9PL | UK
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