The groundbreaking Australian film Sorella’s Story was selected as part of the prestigious Venice International Film Festival. It is a reminder, a visceral warning of how prejudice can engineer a devastating tragedy.
Written and directed by Peter Hegedus, produced by Jaclyn McLendon and Bobbi-Lea Dionysius, and co-produced by Axel Grigor and András Muhi, the film transforms a contraband photograph from 1941, buried by history, into an immersive and unforgettable fifteen-minute experience.
The film was shot in Hungary. Sorella is, in fact, played by Hungarian actress Kiara Kalmár and voiced by Australian actress Charlotte Stent.
The filmmakers utilised VR technology for the project, which guides the viewer through a 360-degree snowy landscape.
We follow the story of Sorella Epstein, a ten-year-old girl, tragically part of a group of Jewish women from Latvia who are ordered to strip for a mass execution on a beach in Liepaja in the middle of a freezing winter during World War II.
At a time in history when the memory of the Holocaust is beginning to fade in increasingly alarming ways, filmmaker Hegedus, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, decided to allow himself to be guided by a photo yellowed by time, recreating a massacre that should never be forgotten.
Ninety-two-year-old Latvian-Australian Ethel Davies, whose family members were killed in the same massacre, also acted as a consultant throughout the making of the film.
An intimate portrait of the conversation between the woman and the director, entitled In Their Name, premiered on ABC TV in recent weeks.
Sorella’s Story is the result of years of work, developed with the assistance of Queensland’s Griffith Film School (GFS). The production team entered into a unique collaboration with a group of Master’s students who travelled to Latvia and Hungary and took part in the film, filling a number of key roles.
The film’s 360-degree technology also allows for a more effective and emotional approach to the story - a unique and immersive experience.
The 1941 photograph of a mass execution during the Holocaust that inspired Sorella's Story. (Photo provided)
“This is a project of great passion”, said Herman Van Eyken, head of the Griffith Film School, who studied at the DAMS in Bologna with Umberto Eco and has a long career as a filmmaker behind him.
“It is truly incredible to have witnessed the work of so many students, behind and in front of the camera. Peter wanted to work with them all the way through, and it is extremely gratifying that they managed to achieve such a result. The world of film festivals can open so many doors; they were brave and have already achieved so much.”
Sorella’s Story is a Soul Vision Films production, with funding from Screen Australia, in association with Screen Queensland, Dalarna University Sweden and Griffith University’s Disrupting Violence Beacon, a research initiative co-directed by Elena Marchetti, whose family hail from Friuli and Brescia.
