After the War: Memoirs of Exile (2014)

At the end of the WWII the Red Army advances on the Prussian front. Georg, a young German officer, is shot dead by marauding soldiers in front of his Ukrainian wife and his two young daughters. The bereaved family heads west to Westphalia, and years later arrives in Canada. Departing from a collection of period artefacts, this film seeks to explore family historiography and memory in a post-war setting, dealing with the complex layers and dilemmas of identity, place- and memory- making, the inter-generational transmission of trauma and memory, and the struggles to reconstruct life and home after conflict. On the occasion of the 70th Anniversary of D-Day, and of the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea, these dilemmas are as current as ever.