Leedvermaak

In the 1970s Ada and Simon, a well-to-do Jewish couple that survived the Holocaust, organise a wedding party for their daughter Lea and her fiancé. As the evening progresses, the exuberance makes way for resentment and frustration. Dutch classic, directed by Frans Weisz, based on the play by Judith Herzberg.

When their daughter Lea gets married with the successful doctor Nico, Ada and Simon prepare a big celebration. Ada and Simon are survivors of Auschwitz and the Holocaust is still – at the beginning of the 1970s – fresh in everyone’s memory. As the party progresses these memories more and more come to the surface, and the evening gets an increasingly grim character.

Leedvermaak (1989) is an adaptation of the play of the same name by Judith Herzberg, who also wrote the screenplay. When it came out, the play for the first time gave a voice to the children of Holocaust survivors. The film, with among others Kitty Courbois, Pierre Bokma and Annet Nieuwenhuijzen, won three Golden Calves.