Giado + Crossing the River

Post-screening discussion with Giado co-director Sharon Yaish & art director Arit Gordon and Crossing the River director Allan Novak & producer Debi Wisch

This deeply personal documentary by Sharon Yaish and Golan Rise began when Yaish uncovered her grandfather Yosef’s journal. She quickly realized there was much she didn’t know about her own family’s past, specifically the harrowing conditions at the Giado concentration camp in the Libyan desert, where more than 3,000 Jews were sent from their homes in Benghazi during World War II. Though Yosef had kept his diary a secret from his family, Yaish and her co-director Golan Rise, whose mother was also enslaved at a labor camp in Libya, have decided to share this history in order to raise awareness. For too long, the Holocaust of North African Jewry has been left under-discussed and largely treated as a footnote; Giado uses interviews, animation, reconstructed models of the camp, and diary passages to create a singular, immersive experience of a past that shouldn’t be forgotten.

preceded by:
Crossing the River
Allan Novak, 2023, Canada, 30m
World Premiere
The world’s oldest living siblings who survived the Holocaust are the charming and inspiring subjects of this remarkable short documentary. Director Allan Novak and producer Debi Wisch introduce us to Sally, Anne, Ruth (affectionately known as the “shvesters,” or sisters), and their brother Sol, whose ages range from 96 to 101. Miraculously living through years in a Siberian labor camp after escaping from Nazi-occupied Poland, the siblings tell the story of their lives in Winnipeg, where they’ve lived since the end of the war.