Spin

Synopsis

SPIN is a cinematic essay that links three stories about Denmark
during World War II. The film uses as a central metaphor the
apocryphal legend of the wearing of a Yellow Star by Denmark’s non-
Jewish citizens in solidarity with Jews, an uplifting myth of valor
under occupation that conceals the harsh truth that private profiteers
— along with some in the government – betrayed their fellow Danes.
In telling “the story behind the story,” the film examines the notion of
how memory and myth can serve to neutralize and transform an
irreconcilable experience. While the film will contribute to the
repository of knowledge about the Holocaust, its larger goal is to
investigate how history gets reported through a process that, over
time, may romanticize certain facets while allowing more painful ones
to slip away from public consciousness.

About the Director

Vivian Kleiman is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker whose work is noted for its challenging subjects and filmic approaches. She is Director/Producer of No Straight Lines which premiered at Tribeca Film Festival and then broadcast on the national PBS Independent Lens series. She is the Executive Producer of the Academy Award-nominated short Last Day of Freedom. A longtime collaborator with the acclaimed experimental documentary filmmaker Marlon Riggs, she served as additional cinematographer for his landmark work Tongues Untied, and supervised the posthumous completion of his final film, Black Is…Black Ain’t. The films garnered the George Foster Peabody Award, Organization of American Historians Eric Barnouw Award, and the International Documentary Association’s Outstanding Achievement Award. As an educator, Vivian served as adjunct faculty at Stanford University’s Graduate Program in Documentary Film & Video Production for nine years.