Death Breed
For almost 2000 years, there has been a flourishing Jewish community in the South Indian city of Cochin. When I started to shoot my documentary, there were only seven people left. Thousands of Cochini…
Death Breed
For almost 2000 years, there has been a flourishing Jewish community in the South Indian city of Cochin. When I started to shoot my documentary, there were only seven people left. Thousands of Cochini Jews migrated to the Promised Land of Israel leaving their elderly behind and their ancestors buried in Cochini cemeteries. Among the remaining ones, I came to discover my Jewish grandmother in the eldest Jewess of Cochin. 95-year-old SARAH COHEN, once the backbone of the community, was slowly losing her memory - thus the memory of the entire community was in danger. She entrusted me her legacy, together with rare archival footage and stories of a unique coexistence between Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Jews. During the shooting I discovered that there have been more self-appointed "guardians" to carry on with this age-old heritage. One of them was a Muslim tailor, THAHA (45) who took over Sarah's embroidery of Jewish ritual cloths and started to document the last moments of her life with a tiny handycam. The other one was BABU (60), the last guardian of a crumbling synagogue. His life mission was to restore the building and the community as well. The third one was a contemporary Israeli artist, MEYDAD (34) who came to Cochin to paint the portrayal of deceased community members on collapsing Jewish buildings. During the shooting of this documentary, I have become the last warden, chosen by my "found grandmother" and her "found footage". But one day I discovered that discrimination did exist in Cochin too: among the so called 'White Jews' and 'Black Jews'. As I struggled to find a place for the narrative of both Black and White Jews in my film, I could also fill some gaps of my own Eastern European identity - through the heritage shared by this proud Jewess during the last days of her life.
Death Breed
Horror
Film Details
For almost 2000 years, there has been a flourishing Jewish community in the South Indian city of Cochin. When I started to shoot my documentary, there were only seven people left. Thousands of Cochini Jews migrated to the Promised Land of Israel leaving their elderly behind and their ancestors buried in Cochini cemeteries.
Among the remaining ones, I came to discover my Jewish grandmother in the eldest Jewess of Cochin. 95-year-old SARAH COHEN, once the backbone of the community, was slowly losing her memory - thus the memory of the entire community was in danger. She entrusted me her legacy, together with rare archival footage and stories of a unique coexistence between Hindus, Christians, Muslims and Jews.
During the shooting I discovered that there have been more self-appointed "guardians" to carry on with this age-old heritage. One of them was a Muslim tailor, THAHA (45) who took over Sarah's embroidery of Jewish ritual cloths and started to document the last moments of her life with a tiny handycam. The other one was BABU (60), the last guardian of a crumbling synagogue.
His life mission was to restore the building and the community as well. The third one was a contemporary Israeli artist, MEYDAD (34) who came to Cochin to paint the portrayal of deceased community members on collapsing Jewish buildings. During the shooting of this documentary, I have become the last warden, chosen by my "found grandmother" and her "found footage".
But one day I discovered that discrimination did exist in Cochin too: among the so called 'White Jews' and 'Black Jews'. As I struggled to find a place for the narrative of both Black and White Jews in my film, I could also fill some gaps of my own Eastern European identity - through the heritage shared by this proud Jewess during the last days of her life..