Join us for a compelling afternoon of film and conversation as Hot Docs presents 80 Faces of Freedom, directed by Jason van Bruggen, and Neshoma, directed by Sandra Beerends.

Directors Jason van Bruggen and Sandra Beerends, along with Leonard Vis—a Jewish survivor from Amsterdam—will join moderator Harman Idema, Consul-General of the Netherlands in Canada, for a thought-provoking panel discussion exploring themes of remembrance, identity, and the role of storytelling in preserving history.

About 80 Faces of Freedom | D: Jason van Bruggen | 17 min

On May 5, 1945, the Netherlands was officially liberated from Nazi occupation by Allied Forces, mostly Canadian. Director Jason van Bruggen’s parents were part of the generation that survived the occupation and lived through the Hunger Winter, often eating tulip bulbs to survive. Now, 80 years since the war ended, the stories of those who survived are here to remind us of the perils of war. As the world faces new totalitarian threats, these stories are more relevant than they ever have been in my lifetime. Inspired by a photo of Van Bruggen’s Aunt Femie, wearing her only dress, standing on the street to wave at the Allied tanks on Liberation Day, the director has sought out and interviewed the remaining survivors of that period. Over the last two years, traversing the length and breadth of the Netherlands, he met with 80 people—one for each year of freedom. These are their stories.

About Neshoma | D: Sandra Beerends | The Netherlands | 2024 | 87 min

In the period after the First World War, a time marked by great confidence in the future, one in ten of Amsterdam’s residents was Jewish. Seventeen-year-old Rusha lived in the Jewish quarter with her family. In her letters to her elder brother Max, who had emigrated to the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), she recounts daily life in the city, providing a vivid image of the Jewish community in Amsterdam during the interwar period.

Rusha’s letters and archival footage are combined to illustrate the importance of the Jewish community to the city, sketching colourful portraits of proud diamond cutters, traders haggling at the flea market, cabaret artists everyone sings along with, and city officials committed to social housing, as well as the entrepreneurs behind the De Bijenkorf warehouse, the luxurious Amstel Hotel, and the Royal Theatre Tuschinski.

Post-war optimism is gradually eroded by severe economic depression and the rise of fascism, which leads to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. Humour and zest for life, the lechajim, provide comfort to Jews in times of adversity. Against this backdrop, Rusha grows from a young girl into an independent woman, navigating between the ideals of her socialist father and the religious beliefs of her husband. The outbreak of World War II presents her with an impossible choice.

Neshoma is about the lives of many who are no longer here, as well as what they have left behind: the Jewish soul of Amsterdam—the neshoma.

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