Afterward

NORTHERN CALIFORNIA PREMIERE

In her powerful personal documentary, psychoanalyst and trauma expert Ofra Bloch - an Israeli-born woman from a family of Holocaust survivors - invites us on a courageous journey as she meets with those who represent the twin traumas that have defined her inner life and that of her country: Germans living in the shadow of Nazi crimes and Palestinians resisting the occupation of their lands. Without polemics or false equivalencies, Bloch turns an empathetic ear to the stories and convictions of a compelling group of subjects, all of whom carry the scars of generational catastrophe. In Germany we meet Johanna, the daughter of a Nazi soldier who has become an oral historian of Holocaust testimonies; and Ingo, a reformed neo-Nazi, both of whose lives have been shaped in different ways by the crimes of a long-ago generation. And in Palestine, Bloch listens to the stories and convictions of (to name just two) Bassan, a peace activist whose 10-year-old daughter was killed by an Israeli soldier; and Muhammad, a professor who brought his Palestinian students to Auschwitz. Through these and other moving encounters, Bloch dares to explore the psychic wounds that connect victim and perpetrator, historical wrong and present-day justice. Her nuanced, thought-provoking film even begins to outline what mutual forgiveness might look like.  - Peter L. Stein

Ofra Bloch (Director, Writer) is a filmmaker and psychoanalyst in private practice in New York City. She grew up in Israel, where her deep interest in the short and long-term effects of trauma originated. She earned her Master's degree in social work at Columbia University, and complete both the International Trauma Studies program at NYU, and a training program in psychoanalys is at the National Institute of the Psychotherapies. She has volunteered with Doctors of the World, where she interviewed victims of torture, and wrote their affidavits. She began making short documentaries 10 years ago. Afterward is her first feature documentary.