Winter Journey (2019)

One of the last roles of the great Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who passed away in 2019, is in this compound post-documentary, but mostly still narrative film, in which a son explores his father’s past in a lengthy conversation. That past involves such a fantastical episode as participation in the Cultural Federation of German Jews (the Kulturbund), which until 1941 was actively supporting Jewish culture figures in Germany but was later destroyed, and many of its officials died in concentration camps. The film is a screen adaptation of the autobiographical book by Martin Goldsmith, a radio presenter specialising in classical music. He named his book The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany in honour of Symphony No. 4 by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen.