Moritz Daniel Oppenheim: Director's Cut - Extended Version (2017)

For the first time ever a documentary feature is dedicated to Moritz Daniel Oppenheim who made history being credited as 'the first Jewish painter' as well as 'the painter of the Rothschilds and the Rothschild of the painters', as his pictures of traditional Jewish family life built bridges for an interfaith dialogue - a subject that couldn't be more up to date. Seeking traces of the artist - his motifs, descendants and heritage - in Germany, France and Israel, it quickly becomes clear that the story of this extraordinary personality of Jewish Emancipation whose lifespan covered almost the complete 19th century - a revolutionary phase for the European jewry - is not yet untold, but keeps on living in the people and places whose personal story are strongly connected to Oppenheim. Interview sequences with internationally renowned experts on Oppenheim alternate with very personal encounters of direct descendants of the artist as well as descendants of the people portrayed in his paintings. On the occasion of the first Oppenheim monument worldwide which was set up in his hometown, Hanau close to Frankfurt/M. in Germany, the film is documenting the symbolic 'becoming of the artist', represented by his steel statue and its creative development process from the workshop of the sculptor, to the spark-throwing steel works until he's traveling home, strapped on a arctic truck across Germany and finally re-settles in the very heart of his hometown.