Tacheles - The Heart of the Matter

Yaar is a young Jewish Berliner who wants to become a game designer. His first project is a computer game about the Holocaust entitled “Shoah. When God was Sleeping ”. Set in Germany in 1940, it creates a world in which Jews can resist and Nazis can also act with humanely.

With the game, Yaar rebels against the image of Judaism with which he grew up, but which he believes has nothing in common, and in which the Jews are passive victims. It is also a protest against his father, whom he accuses of suffering from the Holocaust even though he did not experience it himself. So Yaar and two friends begin developing the game despite his father's shocked reaction. After visiting his paternal grandmother in Israel, Yaar moves into a house in her birthplace Krakow, hoping to be inspired by the atmosphere of the place. In the city he learns about events in the history of his family that unsettle him profoundly and also fundamentally questions aspects of the concept of his game

With their documentary accompanying Yaar's research, his encounters and confrontations with family history, directors Jana Matthes and Andrea Schramm raise important questions about how the Holocaust should be remembered. Is it possible in the form of a game that may appeal more easily to younger people, but also has to follow dramaturgical rules of specific to games? Can the personal fate of real people be used as the basis for a fictional and also alternative representation of history? How can younger generations, for whom the Holocaust is far away in the past, come to terms with it without perceiving doing so as an imposed burden?

Germany 2020. Colour, 104 mins. With English subtitles.

Directed by: Jana Matthes & Andrea Schramm.

Jana Matthes and Andrea Schramm

Jana Matthes and Andrea Schramm work as directors and producers for the TV stations arte, 3sat, ARD and ZDF. After studying television journalism in Leipzig and documentary film directing in Potsdam-Babelsberg, they founded SCHRAMM MATTHES FILM together. They depict complex socio-political developments in strong personal stories. Her films have been shown at international festivals and have won various prizes, including the German Television Award and the Discovery Channel Award.

Host or Publisher Goethe-Institut London