PAPIROSEN

Directed by Gastón Solnicki

Argentina/ 2011 / 74 min

Masterfully edited from nearly 200 hours of footage, PAPIROSEN represents a decade of filmmaking, and four generations of Argentine director Gastón Solnicki’s family history, culled from 8mm home videos, a VHS bar mitzvah, and original observational material. His father, Victor, emerges as the lead figure, but Solnicki highlights the entire clan. Beginning with the birth of his nephew, Mateo, and punctuated throughout by interviews with his grandmother, Pola, a Holocaust survivor, the film’s scope is simultaneously epic and intimate. PAPIROSEN is a meditation on family, history, the importance ofstorytelling, and the power of cinema itself.

Locarno Film Festival

Rotterdam International Film Festival

Edinburgh International Film Festival

Thessaloniki IFF

Jeonju IFF

BAFICI IFF

‘’A unique work of historiography, equivocally concerned with the wages of the past and the vicissitudes of the present.’’ – Jay Kuehner, Cinemascope

In “Papirosen,” the Argentine filmmaker Gastón Solnicki trains his camera on four generations of his wildly volatileJewish family, folding 10 years of modern footage into a visual collage that covers more than half a century. Instead of a dignified stroll down genealogy lane, Mr. Solnicki has made a sparking, gossipy soap opera that’s riddled with emotion and stuffed with strong characters. – The New York Times