One man’s art. One woman’s unexpected path to healing. An American woman’s emotional quest to find the art of her Polish-Jewish great-grandfather, lost during World War II.
Synopsis
Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943) was a prolific Warsaw based artist who painted scenes of the Polish-Jewish community in the interwar years. Sadly, he was murdered at Majdanek. After the Holocaust, Moshe’s wife was only able to recover a small fraction of his work, but unbeknownst to the family, many other pieces survived. For more than a decade his great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Rynecki, has searched for the missing art, with remarkable and unexpected success. Spanning three generations, this documentary is a deeply moving narrative of the richness of one man’s art, the devastation of war, and one woman’s unexpected path to healing.
About the Director
Elizabeth Rynecki is the great-granddaughter of Polish-Jewish artist, Moshe Rynecki (1881-1943). She grew up with her great-grandfather’s paintings prominently displayed on the walls of her family home and understood from an early age that the art connected her to a legacy from “the old country”: Poland. In 1999, Elizabeth designed the original Moshe Rynecki: Portrait of a Life in Art website. Elizabeth has a BA in Rhetoric from Bates College (’91) and an MA in Rhetoric and Communication from UC Davis (’94). Her Master’s thesis focused on children of Holocaust survivors. Her book, also titled CHASING PORTRAITS, was published by Penguin Random House in September 2016. The documentary film had its world premiere in 2018.
Year
2018
Film Type
Documentary
Film Length
1 hour 18 minutes
Director
Elizabeth Rynecki
Writer
Josh Peterson
Elizabeth Rynecki
Producers
Virginia Curry
Elizabeth Rynecki
Johnny Symons
Editor
Tina Nguyen
Trailer
Photos
