I Am Von Höfler Variation on Werther (2008)

Run Time - 160 min.  |   Countries - Hungary, United States  |  
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Synopsis by Mark Deming

Experimental filmmaker Péter Forgács presents a provocative look at Hungary's past, fashioned from the scraps one man left behind in this feature. Tibor Von Höfler was a wealthy Hungarian socialite whose mother was a Jewish housewife and father was a successful Christian businessman. While Von Höfler was a man more interested in parties and women than politics, he could not avoid the larger issues of the world during World War II, when Nazi pogroms led to members of his family being exiled to ghettos and concentration camps; later, when Hungary fell to communism, the life he knew became a thing of the past. I Am Von Höfler was assembled from home movies taken by Von Höfler and members of his family as well as still photographs from his archives, married to a narration drawn from his diaries and correspondence. I Am Von Höfler: Variations on Werther was an official selection at the 2009 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.