A documentary that is stirring and enlightening.
Shanghai Ghetto (2002)
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Reviews Counted:44
Fresh:36
Rotten:8
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: Explores a little-known piece of Holocaust history, weaving together stories of overlapping cultures and their coexistence under the pretext of a war to create a touching and unusual narrative.
Theatrical Release:Sep 27, 2002 Limited
Synopsis: In the late 1930s thousands of German Jews, fearing for their lives under Nazi rule and unable to secure entrance visas to other countries, found refuge in the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai.... In the late 1930s thousands of German Jews, fearing for their lives under Nazi rule and unable to secure entrance visas to other countries, found refuge in the Japanese-occupied city of Shanghai. Destitute, hungry, and thrust into a strange environment, they made the best of their situation as they waited to return to Europe, little realizing the horrific toll that the ravages of war, and Nazi-orchestrated genocide, were taking on their people. This engrossing documentary from Amir Mann and Dana Janklowicz-Mann tells the tale through use of concurrently running narrative interviews with several of the men and women who grew up in the Shanghai ghetto, including Dana's father, Harold, whose dinner table reminiscences sparked the genesis of the film. From persecution and escape from Europe, through the length of the war and eventual migration to the U.S, the riveting, moving saga of these survivors comes alive through family photos, archival footage, and, most touchingly, their return visits to Shanghai and the one-room tenements they shared with their families. Narrated by Martin Landau, SHANGHAI GHETTO won the audience choice award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, where it premiered in 2002. [More]
Starring: Harold Janklowicz, Alfred Kohn, Betty Grebenschikoff, Sigmund Tobias
Starring: Harold Janklowicz, Alfred Kohn, Betty Grebenschikoff, Sigmund Tobias, Evelyn Pike Rubin
Director: Dana Janklowicz-Mann, Amir Mann
Director: Dana Janklowicz-Mann, Amir Mann
Producer: Dana Janklowicz-Mann, Amir Mann
Composer: Sujin Nam
Studio: Menemsha
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Reviews for Shanghai Ghetto
The problem is the needlessly poor quality of its archival prints and film footage. The images lack contrast, are murky and are frequently too dark to be decipherable.
This kind of hands-on storytelling is ultimately what makes Shanghai Ghetto move beyond a good, dry, reliable textbook and what allows it to rank with its worthy predecessors.
The film isn't especially dynamic, but it brims with insightful, poignant memories from survivors.
Shanghai Ghetto may not be as dramatic as Roman Polanski's The Pianist, but its compassionate spirit soars every bit as high.
The power of Shanghai Ghetto, a documentary by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann, rests in the voices of men and women, now in their 70s, who lived there in the 1940s.
A salute to those who were blessed not only with savvy and courage, but something between an uncanny sense of foresight and an unforeseen stroke of good fortune.
Filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann area headed east, Far East, in retelling a historically significant, and personal, episode detailing how one international city welcomed tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees while the world's democracie
A Jewish WW II doc that isn't trying simply to out-shock, out-outrage or out-depress its potential audience! Who knew...
Nothing is exceptional about Shanghai Ghetto, a documentary by Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann, except the story itself.
This would be thoroughly engrossing if the film itself weren't an example of the most tedious brand of documentary.
This is riveting stuff, especially in its account of how refugee culture and community spring up almost overnight.
All of this story is engrossing, especially because it unfolds something more than political data.
Like Lisa Gossels' Children of Chabannes (2000), which tells another little-known story about French villagers who saved 400 Jewish children, Shanghai Ghetto is a celebration of humanity.
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