Anna Kis

Domi is a 20 year-old outstanding cello talent. Elegant, sophisticated, self- confident. Someone all perfection. Beni is a 20 year-old extremely talented pianist. A rackless teenager, insecure and omnipotent, often changing his mind and his moods. Someone full of passion. Our movie tells the coming of age story of their obsessive friendship. However different their personalities are, the two boys stubbornly stick together. While Domi aims to become a world-famous solo artist, Beni's unrestful character does not allow him manage his own talent well enough. Domi conquers people with his faultless confidence, but his perfection can be suffocating. Beni fights back by making himself so lovable, but suffers a lot from endlessly measuring himself to others. Both have some important quality that the other one lacks, but probably misses very much to complete his own artistic self. Beside their excellence in the elite empire of classical music, they are also ordinary teenagers simply killing time with friends, playing computer games and enjoying jokes. Through their sizzling battles over mutual commitment, love and acknowledgment we watch them grow up into two very different types of artists. Jealousy heats up when Tara, Domi's intimate childhood friend is accepted into the gang and Beni falls in love with her. Domi has to face the painful fact that there is a new adult bond between his two best friends, out of which he necessarily has to stay out. Meanwhile Domi seems to conquer international stages, and Beni has to realize that he is lagging behind his own opportunities. At this level Domi has to find a new piano partner and might leave Beni behind. Plans, prospects and romances come and go, and they are suddenly 24. Changes are now both audible and visible. The ease of youth starts to dissolve in front our eyes and difficulties are about to harden into permanent patterns. Can a tormenting friendship survive if its fundamental base – playing music together – fades away?

I am the only member from my family who is able to travel with my Holocaust survivor grandmother from Budapest to the yearly Generation Forums in Ravensbrück former Concentration Camp. We stay there at houses, which used to serve as female SS guards’ accommodation. Artists come to perform, young people listen to survivors, we remember, days are devoted to memories. Although I am there to support my grandmother, it seems she is much stronger than me. But how do I deal with this location, spending summers in a death camp? How can I balance my feelings in between hate for this place and overcoming the unbearable memories of my grandmother’s past that all became part of mine?

I grew up with the knowledge of a horrible trauma that happened to my family 80 years ago. Almost everyone perished of my family in concentrations camps. One of the only survivors is my grandma. I know every single detail. She is 97 years old. We have a very special bond between us since my childhood. I follow her everywhere she goes even if it is painful for me. I hoped our last visit together at the Holocaust Memorial event in 2021 of Rechlin KZ would end to my painful journeys and let me live in the present, but I ended up with a different conclusion.

"Dear Helen" is a film-letter, an experimental docu-diary, dedicated to my great-grandmother Helen, who perished in Rechlin KZ, in the arms of my grandma.