United States - “Pentcho” by Stefano Cattini
In Netanya, the capital of the Sharon plain in Israel, there is the monument of a ship. Its story indeed ran ‘the sea of time’ and is yet told by the elderly passengers and their relatives, keeping alive its memory.
That ship is the Pentcho, an old and malfunctioning river-boat of Bratislava that represented the only chance for salvation for 520 Jews - Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles, including 100 former Buchenwald’s internees- escaping from Europe to Palestine. A dangerous travel descending on the Danube, flowed into the open sea, between hardship and difficulties, up to a shipwreck, when the tragedy was avoided also thanks to the Italian Navy.
This incredible page in the history of the Shoa is narrated by Stefano Cattini’s documentary Pentcho.
Cattini is born in Carpi (Modena) and lives in Parma. He has been a member of the European Film Academy since 2010 and is the author of several documentaries focusing on “stories of persons”. Pentcho is produced by the Bolognese Sonne Film, Mosaic Films, and Rai Cinema, with the support by the Emilia-Romagna Region Audio-visual fund.
The documentary -which received special mention of the jury at the Festival dei Popoli of Florence in 2018- is now presented in New York on the occasion of the events organized by the Primo Levi Center in New York for the 2019 International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
On January 23rd, screening at the New York Film Academy, followed by a Q&A with director Stefano Cattini.
On January 24th, screening at the Italian Cultural Institute of New York. A panel discussion will follow, attended by the author.