Histoires d’Amérique. Food, Family and Philosophy

A story lives on as long as it is told. The setting: a waterfront promenade in New York at night. Men and women step before the camera to speak of flight, emigration, faith, love, and loss. Some of their stories are funny, others painful—many, in a way, are both. Inspired by the world of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Akerman blends Yiddish humor with the experiences of the Jewish diaspora, exploring how memory can be passed down through generations. The static camera lends the proceedings an almost theatrical quality as a shared space of experience gradually unfolds. *Histoires* is a film about storytelling itself: as a means of preserving a vanishing culture and as a way to counter oblivion.
(Florian Widegger)