Bina’s film was a challenge to edit. A marathon really. Stories ran into each other and everything meant something – so it was difficult to pick out the strongest and most poignant story that we would be able to aptly cover and explore in just eight minutes. The decision to have so much found footage was late in the creative process.

A strong sense of style was very important to us. We wanted the style to reflect the nature of memory and history. The found footage really pulls the viewer back in time. We had to find footage that was both accurate and abstract. We didn’t want the meanings of the footage that we found to be too literal and be treated as whole facts or absolute truth, we wanted it to be more representative and loose. But we wanted to retain the truth of the story, so by having Bina and Arthur’s testimony and remnants of the war such as photos and their identity cards, we added certain elements of truth. But what is truth in documentary? We didn’t want this to be some kind of generic survival story from the Holocaust. We wanted it to stand out and be more than that. Bina and Arthur are two of the loveliest people on this earth and we wanted to share their incredible journey and their passion for life. We think this comes across in the final piece.

This story is about bridging the generation gap. This is Bina and Arthur’s story but at the same time it is how we have interpreted Bina’s story to share with the rest of you and make it accessible.

Our afternoon visits over zucchini slice and beetroot dip with Bina and Arthur has been a pure delight. Their eagerness to teach us about history and share their experiences has been life changing and has given each of us a new appreciation for times past. A special friendship has been forged in these past few months that I am sure each of us will hold dear. 

A story of luck and survival.
- Alice, Steph, Quentin