The Restless Hungarian

In this searingly honest melding of the personal and historical, filmmaker Tom Weidlinger uncovers the impressive and amazing story of four generations of his family. Central to the story is Tom’s father, Paul Weidlinger, a brilliant structural engineer who collaborated with some of the world’s most famous architects and artists to create buildings influenced by Bauhaus and modernist design. He fled Europe just ahead of the Holocaust — but kept secret, even from his children, the fact that he was a Jew. Attempting to untangle truth from fiction, Tom uncovers a hidden story and lays bare the scars from his family’s experience of war, displacement, and immigration. Told through hand-drawn sketches, archival footage, photographs, letters, paintings, songs, and dramatic reenactments with recreated scenes from his own childhood, Tom Weidlinger’s profoundly thoughtful quest makes meaning from his family’s suffering, resulting in a healing work that breaks the cycle of intergenerational trauma. (Miami Jewish Film Festival)