PHILADELPHIA PREMIERE - MENDELSOHN’S INCESSANT VISIONS

Director: Duki Dror
Israel, 2011, 72 minutes
 

Even from the trenches of WWI, Erich Mendelsohn never gave up on his dreams. Drawing architectural renderings and sending his abstract sketches to Louise, a young cellist who he hoped would someday become his wife, Mendelsohn was determined to become Germany’s most accomplished architect. After the war, alongside contemporaries Albert Einstein and Frank Lloyd Wright, Erich and Louise seek refuge in each other’s hearts, with Louise determined to help launch Erich’s career. Their marriage, both creative and familial, blossoms and evolves until Nazism takes hold and the Mendelsohn’s, like many other German Jewish intellectuals, are swept up in the frenzy of the mass Jewish exodus. Through Erich’s 1500 letters and Louise’s deeply personal memoir, Duki Dror breathes life into some of the most beautiful works and captivating characters in the development of modern art.
 

Guest speaker: Witold Rybczynski, Author and Emeritus Professor of Urbanism, University of Pennsylvania