In mid-June 2025, we embarked on a four-day journey through Podlasie — a region dense with echoes, questions, and unspoken layers of family history. It was the beginning of something, not yet a film. This pilot shoot allowed us to observe — with both camera and open attention — the first steps Carmel and Stefan took into landscapes once inhabited by Carmel’s ancestors. It was a journey through place and presence.
In Search of Presence
As Carmel and Stefan walked through Białystok, Tykocin, and Treblinka, we followed with the camera, close but quiet. Our intention was not to capture finished scenes, but to witness how these places — some familiar from stories, others approached for the first time — might begin to speak. We observed how the two friends moved through these places: sometimes with stillness, sometimes with disbelief, sometimes with unexpected warmth. The camera stayed with them — not to direct, but to stay present as questions surfaced and stories slowly began to reveal themselves.
A Film Not Yet Made, But Deeply Felt
This pilot shoot gave us a first glimpse into what the future film might become — not in terms of content, but in rhythm, emotion, texture. The materials gathered during these days — reference photos, ambient sound, diary-style recordings — will serve as groundwork for the development of the full narrative and artistic concept, which we aim to create in 2026. We’re currently seeking funding to allow this next phase to unfold with care and depth, with the hope that the film production itself can take place in the years to follow.
A Syncretic Language for a Fragmented Story
The envisioned film blends the documentary form with hand-drawn animation, weaving memory and history into one layered whole. Inspired by films like Waltz with Bashir or Persepolis, we see animation not as a distancing device, but as a medium that allows emotional truth to emerge where historical records fall silent. The style will combine classic 2D drawing with generative tools to reflect the fragmented nature of family stories — sometimes rough and contradictory, always deeply human.
Who Are Carmel and Stefan?
Carmel and Stefan are bound by friendship and a shared devotion to historical truth. Carmel is an artist based in Vancouver, Canada whose work in oral history spans over 150 interviews with Jewish individuals across generations and identities around the world. Stefan, who lives in Berlin, Germany spent years in the archives of Yad Vashem, navigating vast documentary silences with care and precision. Together, they brought a kind of openness to the trip — part research, part remembrance, part improvisation. This first journey through Podlasie was a beginning — a living conversation with the past.
In the photograph – sitting from left: Carmel Tanaka and Stefan Hoffmann. The photo was taken in The Treblinka memorial located at the site of the former German Nazi Treblinka extermination camp.