Rabbi Wolff: A Gentleman Before God

Description

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury achtung berlin, Germany

Diversity Award Filmkunstfest
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany

Official Selection
Washington Jewish Film Festival
UK Jewish Film Festival
Yesh, Zurich, Switzerland
Judaica – Jewish Film and Cultural Festival of Lisbon

Synopsis

William Wolff is nearly 90 and perhaps the most unconventional rabbi in the world. As the State Rabbi of North-East Germany, he looks after the Jewish communities in Schwerin and Rostock, but still lives in a bungalow near Henley-on-Thames. He leads a Jet-Set-Life – flying from Heathrow to Germany each week. Rabbi Willy Wolff won audiences’ hearts in Britta Wauer’s hit film, In Heaven, Underground, about the Weissensee Jewish cemetery in Berlin. Wauer’s new film shows Wolff’s turbulent daily routine and looks at his eventful past: from fleeing Nazi Germany with his family as a child, to leaving behind his London-based career as a political correspondent, to becoming a most respected rabbi. A fascinating character, Wolff is a deeply religious man who, blessed with tremendous joie de vivre, defies all conventions.

Director

Britta Wauer studied at the Berlin School of Journalism (BJS). After working for Spiegel TV in Hamburg, she studied film (directing/producing) at the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (dffb). In 2005 she founded her own production company Britzka Film. One of Britzka Film’s latest documentaries is In Heaven, Underground (2011), covering the story of the Weissensee Jewish Cemetery of Berlin.

Since 2001 Britta Wauer has directed documentaries focusing mainly on contemporary history, current affairs and biographies. Britta has received more than twenty international awards for her work in documentary, including the Grimme Award, the highest distinction in the German television industry. For her feature film In Heaven, Underground, she won the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2011.