The Archives
Documentary Feature

Project Type: Documentary Feature
Project Status: Production
Director/Producer: Bernadette Wegenstein
Producer: Henrique Landulfo

“The Archives is a poignant exploration of memory, heritage, and identity. Through vérité storytelling, intimate interviews, and striking animations, it follows four protagonists as they uncover lost family histories shaped by the trauma of the Holocaust.”

LOGLINE

The Archives reveals the heritage of the Holocaust. These hallowed places of stored history are the search grounds for descendants seeking life-long evidence of their interrupted family stories. Their advocates are archivists who have uncovered and preserved these memories. The film brings the searchers closer to the truth they are seeking and a measure of restitution through the intervention of magical-realist story-telling.

SYNOPSIS

Through vérité, intimate interviews, and animations The Archives takes you on the journey of Holocaust survivors and descendants around the world as they search through the archives for their lost heritages, focusing on the stories of four protagonists: Muki Fairchild, Avital Caroll, Dave de Csespel, and Rafael Cardoso. Each character, differing in background, takes the viewer on their mission to discover their familial roots and a new understanding of themselves.

Muki Fairchild, a retired therapist, has been on a life-long search for unresolved questions about her ancestors’ past. When she discovers the Aryanization documents (Nazi appropriation of Jewish property) of her great-uncle Sigmund’s sanatorium near Vienna she suddenly discovers her family’s past in a new way, including the difficult history of her father who survived the concentration camps.

Avital Caroll, a professional mogul skier, fights for restitution of her Austrian citizenship nearly eighty years after her grandmother fled Austria as a child during the Holocaust. In Rome, at the Compassionate Sisters convent where her grandmother, Elfi, was hidden, Avital is securing hidden archival documents to honor and apply for the Mother Superior as a Righteous Among the Nations, which Yad Vashem will grant in a historical moment. Dave de Csespel, of Hungarian Jewish descent, is on a decades-long journey to restitute his material heritage, as he carries on a lawsuit his grandmother began, to restitute looted artworks such as El Grecos that hang today in the Budapest Fine Arts Museum.

Rafael Cardoso, located between Brazil and Berlin, discovered as a young adult he is the descendant of a German-Jewish financier and agriculturist, who was friends with Albert Einstein and Thomas Mann, fleeing Germany under an assumed identity via France to Rio de Janeiro. When Rafael is confronted with the truth, he moves to Berlin seeking to discover his heritage and his newfounded identity, and now raises his child in the German language of his ancestor Hugo Simon.

The searchers come together like a jigsaw puzzle, intersecting through their shared inheritance of the Holocaust. By assembling the puzzle pieces, this adds a new dimension to our perception of the Holocaust.

MORE ABOUT THE PROJECT

In our post-truth era, even the irrefutable, heavily documented, eye-witnessed history is not safe from assault. Holocaust denial and distortion are at an all-time high. According to a recent UNESCO study, in mid 2021 nearly one half of Telegram channels, and one out of five X posts about the Holocaust, either denied or distorted its history. The Archives shines a light on the important, and overlooked role that archives, and archivists, play in safeguarding historical truths. The film will illuminate and stimulate dialogues about source documentation, history, and identity using the lens of archives, cemeteries, and preserved ephemeral (home movie) footage.

Following four protagonists of different backgrounds and stories of exile, The Archives shows them in various archives digging for facts and connections about their family histories. The film exposes a deep and ongoing longing for the truth for recovering family histories, personal identities, recognition and even restitution.

The Archives also explores the pressing question in a post-truth era of “what is an archive and why does the preservation of history matter in the present day?” It visually develops several archives around the world. With that we hope to set other descendants and people interested in global history and human rights on similar journeys of truth-seeking.

In today’s climate of rising anti-semitism, Neo-Nazi movements have incorporated other targets of hatred beyond Jewish people, such as people of Islamic faith, trans-people, LGBTQIA+ communities, and immigrants in general. The Archives is now all the more relevant in our political climate of hate.

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Meet The Filmmakers

Bernadette Wegenstein

Director and Producer
Director and Producer Bernadette Wegenstein is an Austrian-born linguist, author and critically acclaimed documentary filmmaker living in Baltimore. Her work brings together her feminist thought and interest in human-centric storytelling. Bernadette has produced and directed several award-winning documentary features and shorts.
Most recently, Devoti tutti (2023), which premiered at Biografilm Italia and won several film awards, including Best Documentary at this human world and the Audience Award at the Ortigia Film Festival. The Conductor (2021) premiered at Tribeca Film Festival, played at over 60 festivals with five Best Documentary awards including the Focus on the Arts Award at Naples International Film Festival. It aired on PBS “Great Performances,” and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Arts & Culture Documentary. See You Soon Again about Holocaust survivors Leo Bretholz and Bluma Shapiro, premiered at the Maryland Film Festival.
Her intimate breast cancer documentary, The Good Breast, premiered at the Geena Davis Gender Institute’s Bentonville Film Festival. Her documentary short, See Me: A Global Concert, won numerous awards including Best Music Film and Best Musical Editing. She is currently working on her first narrative feature, A Sweet Secret, based on the story of a forgotten Jewish comedy from 1927, for a 2027 release.
Henrique Landulfo

Producer
Producer Henrique Landulfo is the Producer and Co-Director with Sandra Kogut of the film "No Céu da Pátria Nesse Instante" (2023), which premiered at the 56th Brasília Film Festival, winning the Best Editing and Special Jury prizes. The film is selected to be screened at IDFA, the Málaga Film Festival (Spain), DOK.fest München (Germany) and Biarritz Film Festival (France). The film This is Ballroom was recently selected to its World premiere at CPH:DOX, and selected also to festivals as Sheffield DocFest and many other festivals around the World.
Henrique was the Production Coordinator for the film "Pelé" (Netflix, Pitch International, UK, 2020) & the film "The Conductor" (Waystone Productions, United States, 2021). Production consultant for the feature film "The Outpost" (Rai Cinema, Italy, 2023), by Edoardo Morabito, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival's Author's Journey and was selected for the Rio Film Festival and São Paulo Film Festival.
He is the producer of "Dossiê Chapecó, O Jogo Por Trás da Tragédia" (HBO, Pacha Films, Peru), nominated for an Emmy for Best Documentary. Co-Director of the film "Voluntário ****1864" (Globoplay, 2021), directed by Sandra Kogut and shown at BAM Brooklyn (USA) and selected for the 26th Inffinito FIlm Festival.
Annette Porter

Co-Producer
Co-Producer Annette Porter is an Award-winning documentary filmmaker, was drawn to the world of documentary filmmaking to explore ideas and to tell stories - to give voice to the unheard and challenge the status quo. She is drawn to and compelled to fight for stories of the disenfranchised, forbidden, forgotten, or ignored in hopes of making the world a more fair place. Creating a safe place for expression, where contributors can explore their innermost thoughts and feelings to an empathetic film crew with the talent and creativity to capture their unique identity on film is a hallmark of her producing.
Through her company, Nylon Films, she produces and directs films from a female perspective for cinematic, broadcast, and corporate audiences on topics ranging from contemporary arts and culture to social and historical issues. Her work has been featured by broadcasters including PBS, BBC, ITVS, and NBC, by clients such as Estee Lauder, the World Economic Forum, and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, and in publications including the Washington Post, the New York Times and Vogue.
In addition to filmmaking, Annette serves as the Director of the Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund and a Filmmaking Instructor for Baltimore Youth Film Arts and Johns Hopkins University.
John Benam

Cinematographer
Cinematographer John Benam, a two-time Emmy Award-winning DP brings extraordinary stories to the screen. In 2023, his latest documentary project came as a 2-part Hulu special, "Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields." It's a look at actor, model and icon Brooke Shields as she transforms from a sexualized young girl to a woman discovering her power. As a Producer and DP, 2023 also saw the premiere of his ITVS Open Call film called "The Body Politic," about the young black Mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, trying to heal his City in the shadow of unprecedented violence.
In 2021, John worked as the Lead Cinematographer on the PBS film, "The Conductor," Directed by Bernadette Wegenstein. The film was nominated for an Emmy Award. John's passion for diversity and social justice is evident in his critically acclaimed films like “Charm City,” which was shortlisted for the Oscars, earned worldwide theatrical release in 2018, revealed the complex world of community-police relations.
As Director of Photography on Netflix’s 2017 Emmy-nominated series “The Keepers,” John created an authentic connection with the courageous survivors of abuse. John works with National Geographic, Netflix, HBO, PBS, and Oprah Winfrey's "OWN' and has a rich network of spirited collaborators and colleagues.
Stefan Fauland

Editor
Editor Stefan Fauland is an award-winning film editor living and working in Vienna, Austria. He studied Information Design and started out as an assistant editor working on documentary and narrative films such as “Little Joe” by Jessica Hausner. Stefan teaches post-production at the University of Applied Sciences BFI Vienna. His editing is influenced by his background in music; he also plays the violin in various ensembles and orchestras in Austria.
Stefan’s documentary films include features like “Devoti Tutti” (2023) and “The Conductor” (2021) by Bernadette Wegenstein, “Because they know what they are doing” by Igor Hauzenberger “Omsch” (2013) by Edgar Honetschläger and narrative films like “Ordinary Creatures” (2020) by Tom Marschall and “Roads not taken” (2022) by Kat Rohrer. He also works on numerous TV films among which most lately, “Eine Familie. Zwei Welten” by Peter Mahler (2023).
Käthe Erichsen

Researcher
Researcher Käthe Erichsen is a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in Modern Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University with a dual focus in Yiddish Literature and Film and Media Studies at the Center for Advanced Media Studies. In her research, she examines questions of 20th-century exile, heritage, identity and the body, examining poetry composed in Yiddish, German and Russian. 
Her current research extends beyond literary and philosophical inquiries of exile literature and into the materiality of Holocaust documentation, exploring the site of the archive through her work as a production assistant for the documentary film The Archives.
Previously she has worked on the subtitling for Wegenstein’s Devoti tutti and Aiman: A Soloist on the Steppes.