FLASHBACK

Latvian director Herz Frank has many movies to his credit, and awards to his name. One of his best known films is Ten Minutes Older, a short film from 1978, which shows the face of a small boy watching a puppet show. In ten Minutes, the viewer sees a world of emotions pass by.

Frank decides to shoot a sequel, '20 years Older', and visits the boy from the 1978 film. Suddenly different circumstances come together, that force the filmmaker into a personal crisis. Questioning the value of documentaries, the recording of other people's lives, he decides to focus on himself. This deeply personal film is the result of his reflections and doubts during this period. Frank takes the viewer on a journey through his own past and present. We see pictures taken by his father, who passed his love of photography on to his son. We hear gruesome stories about his family, the larger part of which was killed during World War II, we see the circumcision of his grandson. There are very sad scenes with his wife Ira, who is ill and eventually dies. All these images and memories only bring Frank to one conclusion: a man can know himself only to a fatal margin.

"The door to the new film was opened to me by the White Angel; the Black Angel was hiding behind it. My wife came down with a terminal disease, and I myself had to face a heart operation. I was on the verge of giving up everything. But the challenge of documentary filmmaking was stronger than me. I turned the camera to myself, and I looked back.... Flashback! I looked back at my films, at my life which, as it turned out, it was possible to prolong if the open heart was touched. I looked back at the sad destiny of my wife who had faded away in front of my eyes.... at my tiny hometown Ludza in Latvia -- asmall town where I was born, where everything had begun. My mom was a dentist, and my dad was a photographer whose life-dream was to make a film...

It was a free-flight: Riga-Moscow-New York-Jerusalem... I delved into the past like in a dream. And it was not important what had happened before or later. Everything went on inside me...."

Herz Frank