2 OR 3 THINGS I KNOW ABOUT HIM

Dir. Malte Ludin (85min, Germany, 2005)
English and German with English Subtitles
Documentary

Family drama and historical truth collide in the painful legacy at the heart of this astonishingly intimate and honest film. In a rare look at descendants of a Nazi, the filmmaker breaks 60 years of silence and repression, investigating his father’s dark deeds as the Third Reich’s ambassador to Slovakia. Interviews with Ludin’s still-denying family members and others affected by his father’s actions reveal profoundly different views of the Holocaust and the public and private effects of evil.

Film selected and synopsis written by Susan Barocas, WJFF Director, 2008-2011.

Co-presented by All Generations and 3GDC.

Susan Barocas and Lisa Rivo, Co-Director of the National Center for Jewish Film in conversation following the screening.

Malte Ludin is a German filmmaker, born in Bratislava, Slovakia in 1942. He was the youngest child of Hanns and Erla Ludin and his father served as ambassador to Slovakia during the Third Reich. As ambassador, Hanns Ludin signed orders that sent thousands of Jews to Auschwitz.

“[Ludin] courageously probes the effect of this legacy, and the revelations are shocking …[he] doesn’t shrink from debating heatedly with his sisters onscreen or exposing them to their children as liars.” -The New Yorker

“If it tells, in Mr. Ludin’s words, ‘a typical German story,’ the movie also offers an unusually matter-of-fact picture of the private and public effects of ordinary evil.”

-The New York Times