A filmmaker’s search for family lost in the Holocaust leads him to his aged Uncle Benno, a combative man of dubious reputation. They embark on a journey across Poland, into the family’s tragic and complicated past.
“Uncle Benno” is a 30 minute documentary short – a hybrid of vérité road movie, historical storytelling and personal essay – that chronicles the search by Director George Lerner for family lost in the Holocaust. At the heart of George’s search is a monumental figure: Benjamin Falek, his grandfather’s brother, an impossible man who had alienated his closest relatives. The film weaves together footage from his visit to Uncle Benno in Poland in the 1990s, with a return decades later to their family hometown, Jasło, to discover the fate of their family.
