The Testament
By Amichai Greenberg
Yoel, a meticulous historian leading a significant debate against holocaust deniers, discovers that his mother carries a false identity. A mystery about a man who is willing to risk everything to discover the truth.
Project Info
Script: Amichai Greenberg
Producers: Yoav Roeh Aurit Zamir
Co-producers: Sabine Moser, Oliver Neumann
Format: HD
Language: Hebrew, German, English
Subtitles: English
Sales: Intra movies
Partners: The Jerusalem film fund, The Israeli Film Fund, Austrian Fillm Institute
Broadcasters: Yes, Keshet
Distributed by
Cast
Crew
Casting: Esther KlingPhotography: Moshe Mishali
Editing: Gilad Inbar
Original Music: Marnix Veenenbos Walter W. Cikan
Soundtrack: Aviv Aldema
Art Director: Tamar Gadish
Costume Designer: Sarit Sharara
Trailer
Gallery
Synopsis
Yoel, a senior Holocaust researcher, is in the midst of a widely covered legal battle with powerful forces in Austria, concerning a brutal massacre of Jews that took place toward the end of WWII in the village of Lensdorf. An influential family of industrialists on whose land the murder took place, is planning to build a real estate project on the very same land. Yoel suspects that their aim is to bury the affair for good, but has trouble finding the conclusive evidence that would stop the project.
While investigating the incident Yoel examines classified testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and to his shock and surprise he finds a testimony given by his mother, a testimony he didn't know existed. In her testimony she confesses to a substantial secret from her past.
Yoel, who's conducting a double-investigation, personal and scientific, is trapped between walls of silence - on one side, denial of the Holocaust on the part of the villagers, and on the other, his mother's silence regarding her past. As a historian with an unshakeable commitment to the truth, he decides to continue his investigations even at the cost of ruining his personal and professional life.
Awards
פרס הסרט הישראלי הטוב ביותר - פסטיבל הסרטים הבינלאומי ה-34 חיפה
Venice Film Festival- Orizzonti Competition
Festivals
Venice Film Festival- Orizzonti Competition
Upcoming- Haifa Film Festival, Pusan Film Festival, Warsaw Film Festival, Vienna Film Festival, Capetown Film Festival
Amichai Greenberg - director & scriptwriter
Amichai has been writing, directing and producing for TV, film and new-media for 15 years.
His projects include local as well as international educational and commercial institutions such as TV channels 1, 2 & 10, video journal, ZDF, Mandel institute, Yad-Vashem and the Spielberg visual history foundation. The Testament is his first feature film.