DVD Country of the Dead | Annamaria Habermann
“Terra di morti” [Country of the Dead] is the film that will be screened today (Friday) at 6 pm at the Spazio Festival in Piazza San Giovanni, in the presence of the author and protagonist
While waiting for the start of the twelfth edition of the BAFilm Festival, on Friday 28 March at 6 pm, the festival space in Piazza San Giovanni will host the screening of the film Terra di morti, based on the book Il labirinto di carta (www.proedieditore.it) by Anna Maria Hábermann. The event will be presented by the journalist from La Prealpina Angela Grassi. The underlying theme of the film – which unfolds between Italy and Hungary – is the search for the truth about the fate of the paternal family of the protagonist, the narrator of the feature film. Through original documents and photographs, current images of the places where the events took place and meetings with various witnesses, the film gradually leads the viewer to discover where Anna Maria’s paternal grandparents lived, their tragic story and that of her brother Tamás, who disappeared in ’44 together with the entire Hungarian family.
The protagonist questions above all the silence that has surrounded her since childhood: from the shocking truth about the Jewish origins of her father’s family, to the existence of Tamás, an unknown brother born from a previous marriage of her father. The most emotional moments of the film take place in Hungary, in Baja, where Tamás lived entrusted to his maternal grandmother, after his parents’ divorce sanctioned by the court in 1938. These moments are marked by Anna Maria’s meetings with Tamás’s friends who speak of him with affection, describing his personality and intelligence, illuminating – with some anecdotes – his young life full of interests, thus allowing his sister to make peace with her parents’ silence, which isolated her from a reality too painful to be faced. The story of Anna Maria Hábermann is well-known in Busto Arsizio: even recently, on March 6, on the occasion of the European Day of the Righteous, the municipal administration, the Friends of the Civic Temple and the Busto Arsizio hospital company dedicated a plaque to Dr. Aladar Hábermann, Anna Maria’s father, for the generosity with which he carried out his medical activity and for having saved dozens of people wanted by the Nazi-fascists.
Film profile
Land of the Dead (HOLTAK ORSZÁGA) 2010, Hungary (56’).
Directed by: Sándor Lázs and Róbert Kollár
The film was presented at the following festivals:
Hungary: Budapest Filmszemle 2011 / finalist in the documentary section (5-8 May 2011);
Trieste: Adria film festival 2012 / special event for the day of remembrance on 25 January 2012.
Cast: Anna Maria Hábermann, Imre Tax, Emöke Domsky, Adriano Bernocchi Crespi, Katalin Bakos, Magdi Mayer, Father Keve.
Soundtrack: Anna Maria Hábermann performs Chopin study op 25 n.1/op 10 n.3 / Beethoven sonata op