Liebe Perla, Memento Mori: On Filming Disability and Holocaust History

The documentary film Liebe Perla (1999), a German-Israeli co-production directed by Shahar Rozen, is a rumination on the life of Perla Ovici. It is a film that, due to the unfortunately limited circulation suffered by most documentaries, few are likely to see. Yet its narrative and cinematographic excellence offer surprisingly novel treatment of issues that include the treatment of the disabled during the Holocaust, the function of film as documentary record, and the potential conflict between personal and political claims upon the archives of history.