Abramorama has claimed North American theatrical rights to Ofra Bloch’s feature debut, “Afterward.” The doc examining the emotional and psychological wounds of victims and victimizers will have a theatrical release in September, opening first in New York and following in LA, Deadline reports.
Counting Abigail Disney among its exec producers, “Afterward” follows psychoanalyst Bloch on journeys to Germany, Israel, and Palestine, where she explores the effects of trauma and its hand in shaping contemporary daily life and collective identity.
“My wish is that at the conclusion of ‘Afterward’ viewers will see how easy it is to move from a mind-set of a victim to that of a perpetrator,” Bloch told us. “’Evil,’ for lack of a better word, can be unearthed in each of us given the ‘right’ conditions,” she explained, “regardless of our religious or ethnic background. Evil is our capacity as human beings to become bystanders who stop asking questions and remain silent in the face of moral collapse. It is only in the act of humanizing ‘the other’ that we as a society can find a kind of salvation. The film points to the act of active listening and the recognition and acknowledgment of the experience of others as the first step in this process.”
Bloch has volunteered with Doctors of the World, interviewing victims of torture and writing their affidavits. She started making short documentaries in 2008.
“Afterward” premiered at the 2018 DOC NYC Film Festival and recently won the Social Impact category at the Greenwich Film Festival.
