"A Question of Sunlight juxtaposes the jarring memories of 9/11 with the haunting trauma of the Holocaust. We see and hear in vivid close-ups the artist José Urbach as he relives the scenes of Nazi invasion..."
This work is about picturing memories, framed within free-ranging conversations between the filmmaker and visual artist Jose Bach, Polish child of the holocaust. Riveting tales of events from the ghetto and worse are sparked as he witnessed the planes hit the World Trade Center from his kitchen window in Ground Zero. Jose recalls other times, other windows...like the bombing of the Polish airport that triggered the start of WWII. Curiously Jose was in his mother's belly that day, and so stories told always in the shadow of 911 cut through multiple veils of memory. Most are his own, some internalized from his mother's telling, some in the collective memory, and some from films he consumed voraciously from the time the war ended.—Anonymous
A Question of Sunlight juxtaposes the jarring memories of 9/11 with the haunting trauma of the Holocaust. We see and hear in vivid close-ups the artist José Urbach as he relives the scenes of Nazi invasion in his childhood Poland when faced with the smoldering ruins of the World Trade Towers on 9/11. In contrast to the many documentaries with interviews of Holocaust survivors that we have seen for the past decade, this film moves us to locate the narrative within images of life. We hear of destruction, but see the bustle of city life slowed down in a Parisian café or glanced through a window glistening in the sun. Life goes on, people recoup their dignity and ability to create beauty, even as the images of death continue to haunt them. Karen Remmler, Professor of German Studies, Critical Social Thought, and Gender StudiesSilver Remy, World/Fest Houston 2015 - Experimental Documentary
