On Wednesday, January 26th, close to World Holocaust Remembrance Day, we will be screening the film: EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
With presentation and discussion: 9 pm Milk Verona LGBT Community Center
The Nazi-Fascist barbarity was one of the most devastating events in human history. Not only did it torture and massacre millions of people in concentration camps, but it also physically obliterated entire parts of Europe forever. Towns and villages that had survived pogroms, plagues, and wars of all kinds for centuries were forever obliterated in a matter of days. Centuries of culture and traditions vanished into thin air, with their inhabitants deported and entire towns, places, and villages obliterated.
Plot: Young Jonathan Safran Foer (Elijah Wood) is a Jewish man of Ukrainian origin who was born and raised in the United States. A collector of family memories, he decides to travel to Ukraine to find the small, remote village of Trachimbrod, where his grandfather once lived. On his journey, he relies on a local guide (played by Boris Leskin) and his grandson Alex (Eugene Hütz), his peer, who, with his strange English, will seriously help him in his painstaking search, crossing the beautiful Ukrainian landscapes "on the road" in a Trabant.
Jonathan Safran Foer's search will gradually turn into an intimate quest for all three: the father in search of the family's origins, the grandfather in search of his past, and the grandson in search of his own Ukrainian origins.
The young man is shocked to learn that the Slavic population of Ukraine was also responsible for the persecution, even before the Germans arrived. The three eventually reach the end of the line, and Jonathan discovers, thanks to an elderly woman who knew his grandfather, that the village he is searching for no longer exists since the Nazis exterminated its inhabitants. All that remains of the place is religiously kept in this woman's home, as she also lived in Trachimbrod and, like him, has preserved the memory of every inhabitant of Trachimbrod. Jonathan then discovers that his grandfather had a previous family in Ukraine and that he had saved himself by going to America to raise money for his wife, Augustina, and the child she was expecting, but when he returned from the trip he found everyone killed by the Nazis. His search concluded, the young man returns to the United States with his wealth of new experiences and the gift from the elderly woman of Trachimbrod: a box of mementos called "just in case.".
The evenings will begin at 9pm with a short presentation of the film, and at the end of the screening, which will begin at 9.15pm, for those who wish, there will be time for a debate.
MILK Verona LGBT Community Center – Via Antonio Nichesola, 9 – VERONA (San Michele Extra)
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www.milkverona.it – LGBTQ cinema in Verona – www.arcigayverona.org/sito