DIRECTORS’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY

Cordelia Dvorák is a writer, dramaturge, theater director and filmmaker. Since 1996 she has worked on more than 80 international opera, theater and dance productions, including with the Kammerspiele Munich, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Grand Théâtre of Bordeaux, the Teatro Sāo Carlos Lisbon, the Piccolo Teatro in Milan and The Nationale Reisopera in the Netherlands. Since 1998 she has written and directed international documentary film productions and video-installations, in cooperation with BBC, Arte, NDR, ZDF, SWR, SVT, SFR, Canal 22, the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, the Goethe Institute and more. She received grants and scholarships from the Goethe Institute, the Berliner Senat, Vassar College, The Larks Playwright Centre New York, the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes FONCA, Mexiko and the Fundación Bancomer, México City as well as the Exzellenz-Mentoringprogramm Kunsthochschulprofessur / UDK University of Fine Arts, Berlin. She was invited for International guest professorships and lectures at Montclair State University, the University of Fine Art’s Berlin, the Academy of Performing Arts Hong Kong, the Centro Andaluz de Teatro in Seville, the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes and the Universidád del Claustro de Sor Juana, both in Mexico City. She is jury member of the Festival Internacional de Cine, Guadalajára, Mexico and the PAF Festival of Film Animation and Contemporary Art, Olomouz /CS. She regularly writes for the FAZ (Ich.Heute.10vor8), The ZEIT (Frauen schreiben: politisch.poetisch.polemisch) and the Amnesty International Journal. (3/19)

Filmography (selection)
* One has only to survive – the Jewish composer Berthold Goldschmidt as the last survivors of the so-called ‘Entartete Kunst’ / 1998
* One day in the life of Peter Jonas / 1999
* Herbert Wernicke or the Geometry of the Opera / 2000
* Peter Greenaway – a horse drama / 2002
* Bailar para vivir – Salon México / 2004
* Visiones desde la memoria femenina / Video-installation / 2010
* John Berger or The Art of Looking / 2016
* Marceline. A woman. A century / 2019

https://www.cordelia-dvorak.de/

DIRECTOR’S NOTE

Throughout my career as a filmmaker I always had a special fascination and sensibility for biographies, od people’s retrospective and Jewish topics. My first film (One has only to survive, 1999) was about the over 90-year-old Jewish composer and musician Berthold Goldschmidt, who had survived a twofold exile in London: once by the Nazis, then by the militant position of the a-tonal post-war musical culture. Parallel to the emergence of my film, Goldschmidt experienced a late, but striking international success, which the film was able to capture.

In my most recent film I portrayed the almost 90-year-old famous English art critic, political essayist, novelist, painter and motorcyclist John Berger (John Berger or the art of looking, 2016). When I accidentally came across Marceline’s photos in a newspaper two years ago, I was immediately captivated by her gaze and the seemingly vigorous agelessness, her humor, her extravagance, her femininity. I immediately bought her book – the fictional letter to her father (And you did not come back) and already during the reading saw a film with her before my inner eye. Since this first strong impact, I’ve visited Marceline several times in Paris. Together with producer Eva Rink we were fortunate to immediately succeed in creating a wonderful female complicity and to win Marceline’s confidence. What really makes Marceline an outstanding film protagonist for me is the arc from the long-silenced survivor of the

Holocaust she was, when returning back to France confronted with an oppressive silence everywhere to one of the politically most uncompromising and frank European film makers. “I wanted to become part of a story that was greater than my own,” she writes to her father; and: “Because I could not do anything for myself, I had to do something for all the others.”

Having vehemently rebelled against her Jewish family background for decades, cast aside her Jewish name and married two non-Jews – today, in a France that is divided by terror and growing radicalism, she becomes once again painfully aware of her Judaism and takes a critical look back at her dreams and political commitment: “The more I demanded […] reparation, the more I had the impression to have found my place. I thought that with the liberation of the masses – be they Algerian, Vietnamese, or Chinese – the Jewish problem would be solved by itself. That was a terrible mistake.”

The story of this unusual woman can indeed be told along the great, political and ideological breaks of the 20th century. She found her voice and identity in filmmaking and dedicated her whole life to a critical and engaged cinema. All her films were and still are unique historical documents that even today have not lost any of their intensity. The material of her films and her life itself is inherently great cinema. Unbelievably enough, however, to this very day there has not been a film made about her that would have told her astounding life.

It is now the time to tell her story, – the story of one of the most extraordinary witnesses of the 20th century.

PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY & FILMOGRAPHY

Christilla Huillard-Kann, graduate of economics and Sciences-Po, holder of a DEA in demography, was deputy director of digital at RADIO FRANCE . Previously, she was successively a journalist at FRANCE INTER (“ 2000 years of history ”, “ rendezvous with X ”, “ there if I am there ”), documentary film producer at Image et C ^ie société du Lagardère group (” Le siècle de Verdun ” by Patrick Barbéris, ” les Mitterrand (s) by Eric Guéret,” the world according to Monsanto by MM Robin), and in charge of programs atARTE France from 2006 to 2012 (History Society Culture Unit) under the direction of Thierry Garrel then Pierrette Ominetti and Martine Saada (” Nuclear waste” by Eric Guéret (Bonne pioche), “Africa, the Chinese ambition ” by Nick and Marc Francis , ( BBC -Zeta prod) ; “ Armand le temps d’un été ” by Blaise Harisson (fish films), “ L’âme en sang ” by Olivier Morel (Zadig productions), “Mortal assistance” by Raoul Peck ( Velvet) … She is a member of the CNC digital experiments commission .

Christilla Huillard-Kann
Tel: +33 6 09 31 84 49
christillakann@hotmail.com

Corinne Delpech, a graduate of HEC , was Deputy Managing Director at Image & C ^ie , a production company of the Lagardère group, headed by Serge Moati. ( TV fiction productions including the series ” Mafiosa ” for Canal Plus, magazines ” Cinema “, ” ripostes ” and ” my life as an artist ” on France 5, historical and political documentaries for France 3, France 5, Arte and channel plus).

Corinne Delpech
Tel: +33 6 62 51 17 12
Codelpech23@gmail.com

PRODUCTION COMPANY

ELDA ° productions
Head office: 39 rue Notre Dame de Lorette
75009 Paris
contact@eldaproductions.com
http://www.eldaproductions.com/

ELDA ° is an audiovisual production company founded in 2016 by Christilla Huillard-Kann and Corinne Delpech. Both have nearly 20 years of experience in audiovisual production. ELDA ° produces and co-produces documentary and fictional films internationally with a proactive policy for committed narratives which contribute to the richness of French and European production. We are driven by the desire to build an artistic dialogue with authors, creators, directors, to work over time and to create heritage, with the requirement to constantly reflect on narrative forms in the service of the film’s purpose.

WINDMILL
Producer: Annemieke Van der Hell
Amstel 266 – 1017 AM Amtserdam
+31 6 53 14 85 43
annemiek@windmillfilm.com
www.windmillfilm.com

CREDITS

Director Cordelia Dvorák
Screenplay Cordelia Dvorák
Cinematography Georgi Lazarevski, Susanna Salonen, Bettina Borgfeld, Thomas Bataille
Music Jan Tilman Schade
Sound Stephan BAUER, Daniel WADHECKER, Stephan Raphael GRÜNING
Editor Laurence Miller, Friederike Anders (78′ version)
Produced by Christilla Huillard-Kann & Corinne Delpech for Elda Productions
Cast Marceline Loridan-Ivens with Annouk Aimé, Jean Biagioui, August Diehl, Judith Perrignon, Xuan Phuong, Jean-Pierre Sergent and Simone Veil
Involved TV Channel France 3, AVROTROS, TV5 Monde, SVT, SFR, TSR, ICI Radio Canada, AB thématiques