Not a Word of Truth

This hybrid documentary utilizes animation, archival footage and live testimony to dramatize the untold story of a women’s underground resistance operation in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Risking their lives, these courageous women smuggled gun powder out the munitions factory where they worked, with the goal of blowing up the gas chambers. The diary of Anna Wajcblum, one of the saboteurs whose sister was publicly hanged after being caught, forms the basis for the film. After the war, Anna became a social worker in Ottawa. Her diary highlights the bonds of friendship established between these women under the most horrific circumstances.

It is the summer of '78, a month to go until the Camp David peace accords, but Michal is not worried by world affairs. Her 7-year-old daughter Maya has yet to learn how to read and write and her teacher wants to hold her back a year. Michal rises to the occasion and vows that by the end of the summer Maya will read, write and move on to the next grade. But this summer is set to be full of surprises for the family. Michal's father, Chaim, who's been missing for 20 years, suddenly returns, and brings with him the family's dark past and hidden secrets. By summer's end Michal and her sister Naomi will have to deal with the past they have tried so hard to bury and the painful - yet liberating - process will eventually lead them onto a new path.

The stories of Eitan, Yigal and Miri show how long the past can cast its shadows. Their Holocaust-surviving parents were abused by the Nazis, then became abusers themselves—their fear and grief transformed into aggression and anger towards their children. For the first time on-screen, children of Holocaust survivors talk openly about the mental and physical suffering they experienced. Stories of abuse contrast with cheerful-looking black-and-white photos of the families. Even the grandchildren appear to be suffering from their parents’ burden of sorrow and pain. The children's attempt to talk about the past, as with Eitan and his ailing mother and Miri with her son, seem futile. The palpable inability to make contact is almost unbearable. Shadows asks the unavoidable questions: how long will the Holocaust continue to exert its evil influence on future generations, and how can the demons of the past be exorcised?

The series follows three young people, each debating whether to leave the Ultra-Orthodox way of life and embark on a new secular path. Though they are of different background, age and family status, and diverse Ultra-Orthodox sects, they all share one thing: the desire to be free and have the right to choose - what will their lives look like? What will they believe? How will they dress? And how will they co-exist with their Orthodox families and past?