Neshoma

In this beautifully composed work, filmmaker Sandra Beerends uses a rich trove of archival footage to resurrect the vibrant Jewish communities of Amsterdam in the years before World War II changed these lives and landscapes forever. Rather than simply telling a visual history through testimonies or talking heads, Beerends employs this vivid historical material to create a film that exists in the space between documentary and fiction, inventing the life of a 17-year-old girl named Rusha as she, her friends, and her family navigate an environment of post–World War I optimism, followed by economic depression, the subsequent rise of fascism, and finally occupation. Neshoma—named for the Yiddish Hebrew word for soul—is a reminder of a way of life that even the monstrous evils of the 20th century could not entirely eradicate.