Gabriel Lichtmann’s Jewish Universes and the Search for Identity

• In Event: Jewish Argentinian Films: Conversations with Gabriel Lichtmann (Spanish)

Abstract

Gabriel Lichtmann (Buenos Aires, 1974-) has been making movies since his feature-length film debut Jews in Space in 2005. Even though he does not completely agree with his films being labeled as “Jewish”, he cannot escape the fact that his films are set in a Jewish universe. By situating his characters at a Passover Seder in Jews in Space, at a Bar Mitzvah ceremony in the 1999 short film “The Seventh Day”, and creating a (fake) Jewish heroine in The Red Star, 2021, Lichtmann’s movies reflect on what it means to be an Argentine Jew. His stories interweave the weight of history brought by the Diaspora and situates it in Argentina, portraying the collective memory of generations of twentieth-century Argentine Jews on the screen. In the fake documentary, The Red Star, Lichtmann painstakingly recreates key moments of Jewish Argentinian history from the last century, showing the search for identity, immigration, assimilation, and belonging, among others. Although he invents a fictional character, the background information and facts that are spread throughout the whole film are real.
In this conversation with the filmmaker, we would like to reflect on his journey and the process that Lichtmann uses to arrive at that Jewish universe: How does he engage with the themes in his movies? Why does he find it difficult to see his films as part of “Jewish cinema”? Taking The Red Star as an example, could he agree with David Lowenthal that “the common past is not defined directly by the reference of a shared event but by its relevance for an identity process”? This remarkable opportunity to talk with the artist alongside renowned scholars in the field of Latin American Jewish film, such as Mirna Vohnsen (Ireland), Amy Kaminsky (USA), and Débora Kantor (Argentina), would provide a significant and crucial space to talk about Jewish films from the Global South using an interdisciplinary and globally aware perspective.

Author

• Daniela Goldfine, University of Wisconsin-River Falls