Hot Docs 2008

Somewhere in Warsaw, Poland, there is a 150-kilogram German-made kredens (credenza) that holds the 80-year-old history of a Polish-Jewish family in its sturdy cupboards. The kredens-left behind when filmmaker Jacob Dammas's family was forced to leave Poland in 1968, along with 20,000 other Polish Jews-was too heavy to take with them. Defying his mother's words, "there are doors in life that must be shut and they should stay shut," Dammas returns 39 years later to the apartment his mother and grandfather used to live in. There he finds an older Polish-Catholic man who invites him in for a few drinks, but soon tells him that he gave the kredens away to a neighbour. Dammas follows the trail of the kredens in this humorous and beautifully rendered wild goose chase for the lost piece of family history.