In August 1938 an American visitor appeared in a Polish village outside Warsaw, bearing an object of considerable novelty to the townspeople: a 16mm motion picture camera. David Kurtz filmed for not much more than 180 seconds, his shutter opening onto village life in Nasieslk, home to a Jewish population numbering several thousand people.
Kurtz, who had been born in Nasielsk but immigrated to America at the age of 4, seemingly preferred to focus on the buildings, shops and synagogue of his birthplace, yet young people, especially, began to crowd into the frame, fascinated by the cinematic device. Kurtz hoped to make a travelogue; children intuitively understood it as an opportunity to be seen, to be somehow preserved on celluloid.
Those precious seconds of archival film, rescued from oblivion by David Kurtz’s grandson, Glenn Kurtz, are the basis for the Oscar-contending documentary Three Minutes – A Lengthening. Journalist and historian Bianca Stigter directed the film,...
Kurtz, who had been born in Nasielsk but immigrated to America at the age of 4, seemingly preferred to focus on the buildings, shops and synagogue of his birthplace, yet young people, especially, began to crowd into the frame, fascinated by the cinematic device. Kurtz hoped to make a travelogue; children intuitively understood it as an opportunity to be seen, to be somehow preserved on celluloid.
Those precious seconds of archival film, rescued from oblivion by David Kurtz’s grandson, Glenn Kurtz, are the basis for the Oscar-contending documentary Three Minutes – A Lengthening. Journalist and historian Bianca Stigter directed the film,...
- 12/13/2022
- by Matthew Carey
- Deadline Film + TV
The forensic analysis of home-movie footage shot in a small community in 1938 Poland is the subject of Bianca Stigter’s arresting documentary
Perhaps “a deepening” is closer to the mark. This arresting film is about a vivid process of reconstruction, or recontextualisation, like finding a fragment of an Etruscan pot in the soil and imagining what the whole pot looked like, what the society that produced it looked like, and what the violence that destroyed it looked like.
It is based on the book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film by the American memoirist and author Glenn Kurtz. In 2009, he had chanced upon a home movie shot by his grandfather David, who had come as a child from Poland to the US and made a prosperous life for himself there. The film recorded the family’s European vacation in 1938 and included a remarkable three-minute...
Perhaps “a deepening” is closer to the mark. This arresting film is about a vivid process of reconstruction, or recontextualisation, like finding a fragment of an Etruscan pot in the soil and imagining what the whole pot looked like, what the society that produced it looked like, and what the violence that destroyed it looked like.
It is based on the book Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film by the American memoirist and author Glenn Kurtz. In 2009, he had chanced upon a home movie shot by his grandfather David, who had come as a child from Poland to the US and made a prosperous life for himself there. The film recorded the family’s European vacation in 1938 and included a remarkable three-minute...
- 11/30/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Each week we highlight the noteworthy titles that have recently hit streaming platforms in the United States. Check out this week’s selections below and past round-ups here.
Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)
The title shares its name with a city-size spacecraft ferrying humans from Earth to Mars in barely three weeks. It’s a routine trip that’s never run into problems with many passengers already having family on the red planet to greet them upon arrival. But there’s a first time for everything as a small field of debris forces Captain Chefone (Arvin Kananian) off course. Unfortunately a screw breaches their hull anyway, pushing their nuclear fuel supply to critical mass. Expelling it may save them for the moment, but without it they cannot steer. So despite having enough self-sustaining electricity and algae (for air and food), there’s no way to return onto their necessary trajectory.
Aniara (Pella Kågerman & Hugo Lilja)
The title shares its name with a city-size spacecraft ferrying humans from Earth to Mars in barely three weeks. It’s a routine trip that’s never run into problems with many passengers already having family on the red planet to greet them upon arrival. But there’s a first time for everything as a small field of debris forces Captain Chefone (Arvin Kananian) off course. Unfortunately a screw breaches their hull anyway, pushing their nuclear fuel supply to critical mass. Expelling it may save them for the moment, but without it they cannot steer. So despite having enough self-sustaining electricity and algae (for air and food), there’s no way to return onto their necessary trajectory.
- 9/23/2022
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
In 1938, David Kurtz traveled from his home in Flatbush, Brooklyn, for a vacation across Europe. He stopped in the small Polish village of Nasielsk, where he was born — a pinpoint on the map that would have been ignored by any tourist, and has been mostly overlooked by history.
But he happened to bring a 16mm camera, bought expressly for the trip. And in 2009, his grandson Glenn Kurtz found three minutes of footage, brittle with age, that pulls this tiny village back into our collective memory.
Kurtz wrote a beautiful book about his experience in 2014, called “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film.” Director Bianca Stigter found the book, and then the footage, which was added to the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was inspired by both to make a short film essay, “Three Minutes — Thirteen Minutes — Thirty Minutes,” which she has...
But he happened to bring a 16mm camera, bought expressly for the trip. And in 2009, his grandson Glenn Kurtz found three minutes of footage, brittle with age, that pulls this tiny village back into our collective memory.
Kurtz wrote a beautiful book about his experience in 2014, called “Three Minutes in Poland: Discovering a Lost World in a 1938 Family Film.” Director Bianca Stigter found the book, and then the footage, which was added to the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. She was inspired by both to make a short film essay, “Three Minutes — Thirteen Minutes — Thirty Minutes,” which she has...
- 8/25/2022
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
Preserving the remaining traces of vital cultural artifacts from bygone eras is a vital journey in not only honoring the lives of people’s ancestors, but also reminding modern society that the tragedies of the past should never be repeated. That important process is highlighted in the new documentary, ‘Three Minutes: A Lengthening,’ which creates a […]
The post Interview: Bianca Stigter and Glenn Kurtz Talk Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.
The post Interview: Bianca Stigter and Glenn Kurtz Talk Three Minutes: A Lengthening (Exclusive) appeared first on Shockya.com.
- 8/24/2022
- by Karen Benardello
- ShockYa
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