“I wonder if any of us have learned from the past,” says Ofra Bloch in a new trailer for “Afterward.” The documentary sees the Jerusalem-born trauma expert embarking on a journey to Germany, Israel, and Palestine to confront inner demons from her past and explore the wounds carried by victims and as well as victimizers.
“As a psychoanalyst with an interest in treating trauma, I’ve always been drawn to the idea that trauma can be passed down and transferred between generations,” Bloch told us. “I used to be focused on the experience of second and third-generation victims of the Holocaust, and never wondered about the effect of trauma on the dependents of victimizers.”
Her perspective changed when she started thinking about her own demonization of Germans, and she became concerned about the danger of transferring those feelings to her sons. “My initial goal of making a film about my interviews with second and third generations of German descendants of perpetrators was born out of a wish to shed those feelings,” Bloch explained. “After I returned from the shoot in Germany, it became obvious that I needed to talk to the other group of ‘others’ in my life, whom I was raised to fear and hate: the Palestinians.”
Check out the trailer to see Bloch sit down with people of different nationalities, histories, and beliefs to help make sense of history, the present, and the future.
“Afterward” made its world premiere at the 2018 edition of DOC NYC and hits theaters January 10 and VOD January 28. The doc marks Bloch’s directorial debut.
