THE LAST HAPPY DAY

Lynne Sachs • U.S. • 2009 • 37 min.

Lynne Sachs
U.S. • 2009 • 37 min.

SYNOPSIS

A portrait of Sandor (Alexander) Lenard, a Hungarian medical doctor and a distant cousin of filmmaker Lynne Sachs. In 1938 Lenard, a writer with a Jewish background, fled the Nazis to a safe haven in Rome. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Army Graves Registration Service hired Lenard to reconstruct the bones — small and large — of dead American soldiers. Eventually he found himself in remotest Brazil where he embarked on the translation of “Winnie the Pooh” into Latin, an eccentric task that catapulted him to brief world-wide fame. Sachs’ essay film uses personal letters, abstracted war imagery, home movies, interviews, and a children’s performance to create an intimate meditation on the destructive power of war.

AWARDS

Directors Choice Award
Black Maria Film Festival 2010. U.S.

FESTIVALS & ALTERNATIVE SCREENINGS

New York Film Festival. U.S.
San Francisco Cinematheque. U.S.
Pacific Film Archive. U.S.
Punto de Vista Documentary Film Festival. Spain
University of Chicago. U.S.
Chicago Filmmakers. U.S.
Singapore Film Festival. Republic of Singapore
International House University of Pennsylvania. U.S.
MoMI · Museum of the Moving Image, NY. U.S.
Hungarian Public Television. Hungary
International Short Film Festival Oberhausen | Profile programme: Lynne Sachs • Curated by Cíntia Gil. Germany (2023)

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