Laci Bácsi
Claudio Recupero & Elena Hazanov
Switzerland | 2012 | 66 min
World premiere
Language : French
Subtitle : English
Lazslo Somogyi Singer is a Hungarian Jew born in 1929. During his lifetime he has survived the Holocaust and Stalinism. During a full school year, the elderly man is visited by a group of students who question him about his past. The task, though, is tougher than imagined. There is the problem of finding a common language and ground where memories can be shared and passed on.
Lazslo Somogyi Singer is a Hungarian Jew born in 1929. During his lifetime he has survived the Holocaust and Stalinism. During a full school year, the elderly man is visited by a group of young students who question him about his past. But it is not an easy task. Beyond the inexpressibility of Singer’s life experience, there is also the problem of finding a common language. A common ground where memories can be shared and passed on. Co-directors Elena Hazanov and Claudio Recupero film this encounter of distant generations trying to understand the process whereby the gap to the present is bridged. Laci Bácsi is not only a film about the difficulties in rethinking the past, but also about the process itself of collecting the testimony of an exemplary life. It is a film about the enormous legacy of pain and grief that plagues the 20th century. And it is also about the importance of listening and sharing. Hazanov and Recupero point out how painstakingly painful yet necessary it is to process memories, thus mirroring their own work as filmmakers in the process.
GIONA A. NAZZARO
