Screening: Memoirs of a Tropical Jew/Mémoires d’un Juif tropical

While enjoying a summer love affair in Paris in 1984, director Joseph Morder reflects on his unusual childhood in Ecuador, the haven to which his parents escaped from persecution by the Nazis in Poland during World War II. Because nothing remains of his childhood but memories, Morder substitutes images of Parisian streets and buildings that replace the streets and buildings of Guayaquil, and uses actors to stand in for the figures from his childhood recollections. The result is a film that blurs the lines between fiction and documentary, a film autobiography driven by emotion rather than history. (Joseph Morder, 1988, France, 80 min., 16mm print courtesy of Harvard Film Archive) Director Joseph Morder will be in conversation with Dominique Bluher. This event is cosponsored by the Film Studies Center and the Department of Cinema and Media Studies.