Original subtitles

This movie's been rejected from about a dozen festivals.

I don't know if that's because the film is not good

or if it's too long or if no one knows what it is

because I, I can't approach things directly.

Oh boy. It's essentially a documentary.

Okay. This is my grandfather.

He means, he meant the world to me.

He lost everybody in the war.

He came here and worked in sweatshops.

I used to love hanging out in the basement.

He'd take scraps of old things

and make things that were just for me.

He passed away less than a year after we filmed,

and I really miss him.

This is my grandparents' house.

People who had numbers in their arms from concentration

camps would casually talk about really horrible,

horrible stories with a Holocaust.

I don't know when the right age to hear that is,

but I knew it was coming.

Nazi storm troopers would break into my house too.

Every movie you sees kids fighting back,

being brave every night, I wondered if I would be captured

and killed, taken

to a concentration camp while my family's being slaughtered.

Could I fight them? Deep down, I knew

that I would've tried to hide that.

Told me that I was a coward.

My grandparents had been through this horrible trauma.

I didn't experience anything.

I was just hearing stories, so I felt guilty feeling bad.

I just knew that I was weak. That led to getting bullied

and issues with my parents, living in fear every day.

It got to be too much, so I,

I decided to step in front of a bus.

It just felt better to be not alive

and this is the movie I made about it.

Dad, run. Get outta here.

This guy looks nothing like my dad.

My dad was much bigger. Meaner balder.

I have seen hildegard's fever.

Not that the kid looks like me either,

but you know, this guy's not even bald.

More bald. Smoked. For real.

It's a disease. It makes you hallucinate.

You know, back in the old country,

the sugar didn't come in our packet

And this guy was great.

Plus a lump. - Also, his name's Michael Jordan.

- We take a string tie up, - Which is cool.

Hang over the table.

When we drink, we will just look the sugar.

Think about the switch.

You didn't wanna do the film at first

because he thought I was making light of things.

You just looked at the sugar. Did you dip it?

Oh, it was too poor. It hung

So I had to to talk him into it.

- It hung - And tell him

what I was trying to do with the movie.

Then he was all about it. This

to me is the best scene in the film.

Maybe it's 'cause there's no dialogue. I'll shut up now.

This kid was great and the movie looks great.

Just a beautiful set. A cinematographer did a great job.

Everyone did so incredible with so little resources

and I feel like I let them all down.

The film's not communicating. I feel like that's on me.

Some people didn't get that.

The kid can't help but put his grandfather into the

story as an old man.

He only sees him as that.

That was, I guess, not clear to some people.

I can't change it. Now

You are living these same stories that are told so casually

and you're placing yourself with these

people in this moment.

That's so intense. It's horrifying.

There's a little bit of sugar on the ground too.

That little lump of sugar,

which is a true story my grandfather told me about,

about hanging up sugar, which is weird.

Is that something people did?

They hung up sugar by a string

and they just looked at it 'cause they were too poor.

When my grandfather was dying in the hospital,

I asked him about that story again.

He later told me that he just thinks he saw it in a movie

And then things got very bad.

I keep seeing him. The Nazi.

You zing a n.

Come here.

Sometimes there is a Nazi in your room.

I had a nety in mine.

This is a demon box.

It's very old. It has whom exactly For one dim.

Is there one in there now?

I don't think so. I can't remember.

I have St. Hildegard's fever.

Don't open only.

I can't be brave like you.

Surviving is nothing to do with brave. Don't brave.

Just do bring back. We bury.

When do we salt the earth?

Not Jewish, but the best Yiddish accent out of anyone.

I tried to cast in my non-Union

movie during the eighties.

It felt really real.

neo-Nazi movement was pretty strong, especially where I was.

It was a real fear,

but it also felt like, oh,

I'm just making a big deal about it.

Like why would that fear be there?

You are not real. You can't hurt me.

When those casting Nazis,

you find these people that are a little too into the role.

Sadie.

Sadie.

One of my worries in making this movie was

that I'd empower Nazis.

I don't wanna make them feel like generations later.

We're still scaring children and

and affecting people so much

that they're gonna commit suicide.

Great. We did our job. Let's keep going.

Excuse me. Your lunch, Mr. Goldberg.

I have to find mama This Mama

Sadie.

I did it. We have to bury it.

- What? - The demon box.

It's a Jewish filmmaker. You don't wanna just

make Holocaust films.

That's not the thing you want to just do.

I generally avoid any kind of Jewish content

and I don't know if that's because of the idea, like trying

to hide your identity to survive

and that's part of feeling like a coward.

So I was fully ready to step in front of a bus.

I went there to see if I could

one step and then it would be done.

Knowing that I could,

that made me realize I wasn't completely powerless.

I could always kill myself. I had a choice.

Uniformed Nazis covering themselves with swastika.

- I could make other choices - There.

Appearance, the crowd of almost 5,000.

Charge a wire fence and breakthrough police. Police

Acknowledge that.

That felt big.

Don't open it. Of course, the kid would be afraid.

Of course, you wouldn't think you could stand up to Nazis.

I think I make films that I can try and unpack things

and finally look inside

and discover what it is I'm trying to say.

It's still a process for me.

It's hard to be brave and it's really hard to be honest,

which is probably why I used an animatronic zombie deer

creature instead of confronting it directly.

I do remember walking in and seeing the static on the tv.

My grandfather's not here,

and I probably worked on this film longer

because I just wanted to hang out

with my grandfather for a bit longer.

This is all really difficult stuff to talk about.

That's maybe why I am trying

to look back at my parents with kindness.

I think they saw what kind of pain I was in

and they didn't know how to talk to me about it.

My parents were raised by survivors

who had no family and no support.

They heard the same stories that I heard, probably more.

Here's this horrible thing that happened to us.

You just sort of go through something and you move on.

What else can you do? They never seemed like these

stories that affected them.

I'm glad I heard the stories I heard.

I'm grateful that that they're passed down.

They made me who I am. I like who I am.

I'm grateful for the person that's

come through the other side.

I didn't know when the right time to tell these stories

to a kid is or the right context.

I don't, I don't know. Once my son was born, I realized

that I'd have to tell these stories to him.

How would I do that? Knowing what they'd done to me.

How would I not mess him up the way I was messed up?

Or is that just inevitable?

I know it's important that he hears them.

I just want to be there for him for that.

I, I don't.