Kim Seligsohn is torn about many things, also about her relationship to her mother Lore, the focus of the documentary LIEBE ANGST. Directors Sandra Prechtel and her team follow Kim and Lore up close and personal as they process their grim German family history. When Lore was six years old, her mother was murdered in a concentration camp, she had to to hide from the Nazis in an attic. She survived the Holocaust and stayed in the country that tore her family away from her. A former Wehrmacht soldier becomes the father of her children. She can never let go of her fear and it impacts the life of Kim and her brother Tom, who committed suicide 20 years ago.

The trauma between Lore and Kim is a burden, makes them gruff with each other, and is tiring. They often disagree about how “it“ was. “I wouldn‘t say that,“ says Lore. “But I‘m saying it,“ counters Kim. Her fight for narrative control is also a fight against time, because Lore‘s memory is noticeably fading. But even before that, Kim had no space for her anger and her pain, which are hard to separate from her mother‘s suffering. Living with the love and the anger, that is Kim‘s life work.

Kim Seligsohn‘s classical singing – sometimes wailing, sometimes hopeful – shapes the mood of this disturbing documentary, and she also collaborated on the screenplay. LIEBE ANGST takes special interest in the dark overtones. The camera captures the most intimate moments: this is hard to take in some moments and yet it‘s so truthful you‘re happy to be a witness to it. The story of Lore and Kim is unique – just like the countless families all around the world that still live with the trauma caused by Nazi crimes.

Eva Szulkowski (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy