Among Neighbors

Among Neighbors

Co-Presented by the USC Shoah Foundation

Combining evocative hand-drawn animation with revelatory interviews and verité footage, “Among Neighbors” examines Jewish Polish relations through the story of Gniewoszów, a small, rural town where Jews and Polish Catholics lived side by side for centuries. At its core, the film zeroes in on the last living Holocaust survivor from the town, and an aging eyewitness who saw Jews murdered there – not by Nazis, but by her own Polish neighbors.

Today, all signs of Jewish life in the small town of Gniewoszów have vanished – even the Jewish tombstones disappeared, having been stolen from the destroyed cemetery. Now, a lifetime after the Holocaust, award-winning American filmmaker Yoav Potash (“Crime After Crime”, Sundance Film Festival) unearths the deepest mysteries of this town, revealing both the love and the hatred that local poles felt for their Jewish neighbors. The town’s oldest residents, the in the twilight of their days, divulge secrets held their entire lives, and their stories came to life in stunning animated scenes, accented by artful touches of magical realism.

Conversation with Director Yoav Potash, USC Shoah Foundation CEO and Foundation Chair Finci Viterbi, Robert J. Williams following the screening.

Yoav Potash is an award-winning writer, director, and producer. He produced and directed the Sundance premiere documentary “Crime After Crime,” a New York Times Critics’ Pick and winner of 25 honors, including a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award, the National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award, and six audience awards. The documentary had a national primetime broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network, streamed on Netflix, and is now available on Amazon Prime. The film helped spark movements to change domestic violence law in multiple US states. Yoav also directed the San Francisco IndieFest Jury Prize-winning documentary “Food Stamped,” which was nationally broadcast on Pivot, Participant Media’s cable/satellite network. Yoav is an alumnus of UC Berkeley, where he received the university’s top prize in creative writing.