The Flat (2011 film)
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Theatrical poster
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| Directed by | Arnon Goldfinger |
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| Written by | Arnon Goldfinger |
| Music by | Yoni Rechter |
| Cinematography |
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| Edited by | Tali Halter Shenkar |
| Distributed by | Ruth Diskin Films, Sundance Selects, Edition Salzgeber |
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Release date
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Running time
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97 minutes |
| Country | Israel Germany |
| Language | Hebrew English German |
The Flat (Hebrew: הדירה) is a 2011 feature documentary film, an Israeli–German co-production written and directed by Arnon Goldfinger. It was theatrically released in Israel in September 2011. It played continuously for thirteen months and has received rave reviews. Time Out Tel Aviv chose to place the film at the top of its recommended films for 49 weeks under the headline: "not to be missed" and chose it as one of the 25 most important art works from around the world for 2011. The Flat was theatrically released in Germany in June 2012. The German version of the film features the voice of renowned German actor Axel Milberg taking on the role of narrator Arnon Goldfinger. The Flat was theatrically released in USA in October 2012 and was theatrically released in Hungary in April 2015.
The film won the 2012 Best Editing in a Documentary Feature Award in the Tribeca Film Festival World Documentary Competition. It was the opening film at Dok Munich in 2012. The flat was one of the final three nominees for the German Academy Film Awards 2013 ("Lola"). and nominated for the German TV Grimme Awards 2014.
The film opens as the director and members of his family are gathered in the apartment of his mother's mother, Gerda Tuchler, a short while after her death, to clear out the contents. His grandmother lived in the same apartment for 70 years, ever since she and her husband, Kurt, left Nazi Germany in the 1930s and immigrated to Palestine.
It is not long, however, before Goldfinger finds various items in his grandmother's house that reveal an astonishing chapter in the family's history – a chapter that had been kept under wraps for decades.
Goldfinger gradually discovers that his grandparents had a close personal relationship with a high Nazi official, Leopold von Mildenstein, head of the SS Office for Jewish Affairs (prior to Adolf Eichmann). Mildenstein traveled to Palestine in the company of the Tuchlers in the 1930s and continued a friendship with the Tuchlers after the war.
After his grandmother's death Arnon Goldfinger began, all alone, to film the clearing out of his grandmother's flat. By chance Goldfinger met cinematographer Talya (Tulik) Galon, who lives not far from his grandmother's flat, and told her about the flat. She helped with the cinematography (Philip Bellaiche entered the production later on). They filmed the family rummaging through closets, the items with their old-fashioned European flavor that were pulled out one after another – and the dozens of garbage bags that filled up quickly. But Goldfinger and the others did not know exactly what they were looking for. And then it happened: Suddenly among the cartons of gloves and shoes, the fox furs and the purses, the books and the boxes with letters – a pile of old German newspapers appeared. Goldfinger did not imagine that this would be the first clue that would lead him on an emotional journey that would be both upsetting and confusing, and that would reveal a family history that for years had been repressed and hidden. At that point the research broadened and new characters emerged, unexpected ones. The crew expanded until the point that the film became a German-Israeli coproduction with Zero One Film coming on board as co-producers.
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