VishniacDirected by Laura Bialis, Executive Producers: Nancy Spielberg, Ori Eisen, Mirit Eisen, Taube Philanthropies, Maimonides Fund
Documentary, English & German, 93 minutes, NR
United States 2024
Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938 on assignment to photograph Jewish life. Less than a decade later these communities would be wiped out, and Vishniac’s iconic photographs would provide the last visual records of an entire world. Through his photographs, we see Jewish life and witness the Nazi rise to power. After the war, his photographs continue documenting Berlin's ruins and Jewish orphans in Displaced Person camps.
Vishniac was also an innovative science photographer. His “Living Biology” series was funded by the National Science Foundation and became a staple in the 1960s and 1970s across the United States. His pioneering techniques in microscopy transformed the nature of science photography. VISHNIAC delves into the person and story behind the photos and frames Vishniac’s legacy as a key modernist photographer and preserver of memory. Through his stunning images, VISHNIAC introduces new audiences to a lost world that is quickly fading from our grasp.