OY MAMA

Made jointly with Orna Ben Dor, this documentary debut by 1980-born Israeli multi-talent Noa Maiman (who works as a photographer, actor, producer and writer) portrays her grandmother Fira. Now living in peaceful seclusion in a home for the elderly, Fira can look back on an eventful life in which, like so many of her generation, she was caught up in the horror and confusion of World War II and the genocide perpetrated against the Jews of Europe. “Her mother-tongue is Polish, she learnt Hebrew at the Jewish school in Łodz, German in a camp for displaced people, Spanish while living in Peru, and English in the two years spent in the USA before coming to Israel.” Maiman’s trail of empathetic investigation begins with photographs and memorabilia, includes many interviews with her grandmother as well as people from her past. But the present day equally plays a role: Fira has adopted a small Israeli-born girl of Peruvian extraction – a child uprooted just as Fira was. The grandmother also sees her adoption of little Firita as a token of gratitude for her own rescue: she survived the Holocaust thanks to a Polish woman who hid her family from the Nazis. In this way, the portrait of an elderly lady becomes not only a journey through the twentieth century but also a parable on the humanity that shines through in the most adverse of circumstances.