Grandpa Ernest Speaks

In an intimate exploration of an old mans life, Grandpa Ernest Speaks looks at the impulse of filmmakers’ grandfather to record his life story. Recounting his life on tape at the close of his life, Madeleine Bazil breathes new life into her grandfather’s recordings and explores the silences and absences in his own retelling through the accounts of still living relatives. Ernest’s story begins in the 1900s in Austria-Hungary and follows the arc of the century’s history through his career, travels, and rising antisemitism across Europe, which,This prompted him to flee from Prague in 1939, eventually finding himself in America. Through interviews with the family, photographs, documents, home video footage and personal reflections, the film explores the themes of time, storytelling and the desire to be remembered.