DOKUARTS
Zeughauskino Berlin
10.-27. Oktober 2019

Ziva Postec. The Editor Behind the Film Shoah

Before film editor Ziva Postec met Claude Lanzmann, she had already collaborated with directors like Alain Resnais, Jean-Pierre Melville, and Orson Welles. Between 1979 and 1985, Postec dedicated her entire time, passion, and energy to Lanzmann’s legendary nine-hour documentary Shoah which contains no archival footage, just interviews with witnesses and contemporary images of places of Nazi crimes.
Catherine Hébert’s illuminating portrait intertwines the story of Postec’s life and her work on this monumental project – 350 hours of film material had to be revised and structured, a work that pushed the editor to her physical and emotional limits. Hébert’s film reveals Ziva Postec’s essential contribution to this remarkable cinematic project and recognizes a largely hidden creative personality without whom the realization of Lanzmann’s documentary about the annihilation of the European Jews would not have been possible.

(sth)