Documentary Film
(Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, 2005, 73 min.)
(Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, 2005, 73 min.)
SHORT SYNOPSIS
Walter Benjamin one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century, died in Portbou in 1940 after illegally crossing the Pyrenees in a desperate attempt to escape the Nazis. The film explores the strange circumstances of his death.
SYNOPSIS
Walter Benjamin died in 1940 after illegally crossing the French-Spanish border in a desperate attempt to escape from the Nazis and to eventually reach the United States.
Who killed Walter Benjamin... investigates the circumstances of Benjamin’s death by adopting a narrative strategy close to the thinker’s own approach to historical discourse and representation.
The film features important academics, thinkers, historians and artists as Stéphane Hessel, Dani Karavan, Stephane Moses, Gary Smith, Rolf Tiedemann, Patrick Von Zur Mühlen, Bernd Witte and Erdmut Wizisla, among others. The many interviews with locals show the elusiveness of past events and at the same time summon up the ghost of fascism in Spain’s history.
The documentary has received an award from the European Association for Jewish Culture and has been shown in film festivals and other events around the world. This documentary is «…perhaps the first ever film noir intellectual historical film, [it] is at once beguiling and enlightening» (Washington Jewish Film Festival).
In 2011 a DVD was released in the frame of the prestigious cinema collection curated by Cahiers du Cinema Spain