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The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1970)

A Film from the Artur Brauner Collection at Our Library

Scene from the movie “The Garden of the Finzi-Continis”

Scene from the movie The Garden of the Finzi-Continis
CCC Filmkunst

The extensive garden of the Jewish upper middle-class Finzi-Contini family becomes a meeting place for young people to maintain their friendships and liaisons undisturbed and unfazed by Italian fascism in the late 1930s. The beginning of the Second World War shatters this idyll and in 1943 the family is deported.

Map with all buildings that belong to the Jewish Museum Berlin. The W. M. Blumenthal Academy is marked in green

Where

W. M. Blumenthal Academy, Library
Fromet-und-Moses-Mendelssohn-Platz 1, 10969 Berlin 
Postal address: Lindenstraße 9-14, 10969 Berlin

The film was to create a "fresco of the Jewish tragedy in toto," as Giorgio Bassani, the author of the autobiographical novel on which the film was based, later wrote. Under the direction of Vittorio De Sica, the doyen of Italian neorealism, a melodrama was created that subtly hints at the breach of civilization. It won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival in 1971 and a year later the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

Starring Lino Capolicchio, Dominique Sanda and Helmut Berger. Directed by Vittorio De Sica.

Reference

Bassani, Giorgio. "Der verratene Garten" (The Betrayed Garden). In: Erinnerungen des Herzens (Memories of the Heart). Munich: Piper, 1991, 165–173.

The Garden of the Finzi-Continis

This Italian film is based on the novel Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini by Giorgio Bassani.

More information on Wikipedia
More information on filmportal.de

Film Collection: Artur Brauner Collection (21)

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