November 10th, 2004
Malibu Times
Holocaust film to play at AFI festival
Gottfried Helnwein's lifelong dedication to artworks perpetuating awareness of Holocaust attrocities.
"Ninth November Night," the Holocaust remembrance documentary which debuted in Malibu last August in its New Malilbu Theatre engagement to qualify for Academy Award consideration, will be a featured entry in the AFI Film Festival Saturday (Nov. 13) and Sunday (Nov. 14.) Produced by Malibu artist and curator Gisela Guttman with director/composer Henning Lohner, the film concerns Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein's lifelong dedication to artworks perpetuating awareness of Holocaust attrocities. The documentary recently was a prize-winner at the Ojai Film Festival and is invited to the Nagoya Film Festival to be held next June as part of the World Expo in Japan as well as to the Calgary (Canada) Festival which honors films of humanitarian outreach.

Guttman determined to bring Helnwein's mammoth (4 meters high, over 150 meters long) Ninth November Night art installation to American audiences as a film after the work, an outcry against the abuse of children, met resistance to exhibition in this country on the grounds that it was "too controversial."
Consisting of giant paintings of childrens' faces, the art installation was vandalized by neo-nazis who slit the throats of the images when it was first exhibited outside the Cathedral in Cologne, Germany. It was subsequently exhibited with the slashes unrepaired, evidencing the continuity of Holocaust hatreds.

The film will be exhibited as part of the American Film Institute's Filmfest at the LA

Film School in Hollywood at 9PM Saturday and 1PM Sunday.