Stumfilmsdagar: The City Without Jews

Based  on the controversial and best-selling novel by Hugo Bettauer, H.K.  Breslauer’s 1924 film adaptation of The City Without Jews (Die Stadt  ohne Juden) was produced two years after the publication of the book,  and, tragically, only a brief time before the satirical events depicted  in the fictional story transformed an all-too-horrific reality.

Set  in the Austrian city of Utopia (a thinly-disguised stand-in for  Vienna), the story follows the political and personal consequences of an  anti-Semitic law passed by the National Assembly forcing all Jews to  leave the country. At first, the decision is met with celebration, yet  when the citizens of Utopia eventually come to terms with the loss of  the Jewish population—and the resulting economic and cultural  decline—the National Assembly must decide whether or not to invite the  Jews back. Though darkly comedic in tone, and stylistically influenced  by German Expressionism, the film nonetheless contains ominous and  eerily realistic sequences, such as the shots of freight trains  transporting Jews out of the city.

The  stinging critique of Nazism in the film is part of the reason it no  longer screened in public after 1933 (all complete prints were thought  to be destroyed). Now, thanks to the discovery of a nitrate print in a  Parisian flea market in 2015, as well as to the brilliant restoration  efforts of the Filmarchiv Austria, this previously “lost” film can once  again be appreciated in its unfortunately ever-relevant entirety.

Eventet genomförs i samarbete med All My Friends Are Stars.

Med stöd av Sunrise Foundation for Education and the Arts, Göteborgs Stad, Västra Götalandsregionen, Folkuniversitetet.