Felix Meritis - Agenda - Sylvain Biegeleisen: The last card

Wednesday May 4 2011 / Arts & Philosophy

Sylvain Biegeleisen: The last card

On May 5th we celebrate freedom, and on May 4th we commemorate. The documentary The last card (La dernière carte) depicts the painful parent-child relationship between the director Sylvain Biegeleisen and his mother during World War II and its haunting memories.

The Last Card takes place in Antwerp, Belgium; birthplace of the director. In it, the story unfolds of the painful relationship existing between his mother, almost ninety years old, and himself, the son who suffered his entire life from the silence which reigned in the family. Beyond the depiction of a relationship between a mother and son seeking restoration, the film touches upon the wider questions of parent-child relationships, memory, guilt, and old age, against the backdrop of World War II and its effects upon the lives of its survivors and their children.

The Israeli Sylvain Biegeleisen is a director, producer, photographer, and musician. Biegeleisen is founder and CEO of the Lahav N.G.O. for the advancement of values in Israeli society. Lahav creates cinematic and social projects for youth at risk, conducts international film workshops on the issue of co-existence (Israel-Palestine, Bosnia-Kosovo) and promotes the increase of Holocaust awareness amongst European youth.