Film Screening and Q&A: The Donkey Field

Part of the Humanities Cultural Programme, one of the founding stones for the
future Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities.

This new film installation created by Sarah Dobai (the daughter of Holocaust survivor John Dobai) is based on an account of events in Budapest in 1944, and focuses on the impact of discrimination, persecution, and displacement on a child. The work builds on the links between an antisemitic attack on the child on a piece of common land known locally as “the donkey field” and the story of the persecution of Balthazar the donkey’ in the acclaimed film Au Hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966). Seen from the point of view of the artist’s family member, a boy who was ten at the time, the film portrays the boy’s experience of the traumatic events of that year when he and his mother are forced to move into a Yellow Star House and their attempt to escape by going into hiding fails. At this event, Sarah Dobai will speak briefly about her film before a screening, followed by a Q&A with her and her father.

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To find out more about the Humanities Cultural Programme funded HCP project please visit: Oxford Holocaust Memorial Events Series: One Day When We Tell Their Stories