SYNOPSIS imageSYNOPSIS image
Jews' ghosts live In Muranow neighborhood in Warsaw. At night, they shake off the dust and ashes that cover them and start wonder the streets that used to belong to them before the Second World War during which the neighborhood turned into the biggest ghetto in history. The neighborhood was ruined as a result of Germans' bombarding and thousands of Jews were buried underneath the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. Their bodies, as well as the ruins of the buildings, were never removed. The remains of life served as raw materials for the building of the new neighborhood built on the ruins. The new neighborhood has the same name as the old one: "Muranow". The streets of the new neighborhood bear the names of the streets prior to the devastation, but other than that, there is total disconnection between past and present. The distance between the physical, spacious and green appearance and the human tragedy hidden under the ground is almost endless. Perhaps this is the reason why the ghosts go out at night, to reclaim what used to be theirs in the past. Some of the Polish residents of Muranow claim they have met the ghosts. Others think that the ghosts are only a metaphor for the implications of the lives, culture and memory that were buried.

 Directed By          Chen Shelach 

Produced by           Micha Livne


Genre: documentry

Release Year: 2021

Running time: 70 min

Production Country: israel


Technical details

Shooting Format: 4k

Screening Formats: dcp

Spoken Language: hebrew, polish, english

Subtitles: english, hebrew

Chen Shelach

Director, Editor, Script writer

Graduate of the School of Television Professions – GivatHaviva Professional Filmography 2017 – One of the writers and content editor of "Cover Story" – the story of Israeli "Mossad" 2016 – Scriptwriter and director of "Pig in the Holy Land" – the story of the pork industry in Israel

Micha Livne

Producer, Cinematographer

A producer, photographer, editor, and director for national television channels and private productions. Graduated from the School of Performing Arts and Cinema - "Beit Zvi".Teaches documentary filmmaking at the Oranim Academic College of Education and the Kibbutzim Seminary. Facilitator and instructor of IDOCU personal cinema workshops aimed at empowerment and change.

Yaron Shein

Art directors & Animation

Designer, illustrator and animator for about 20 years. Now freelancer, He was a senior art director at Shortcut Post Production and a designer at The DED Associates, England. He holds a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design - Academy WIZO Haifa Israel, and a M.A degree in Visual Communication & Media - Utrecht School of the Arts, Holland.

Itamar Gross

Original music composer

Itamar was born and raised in the Jezreel Valley, studied music at the Jezreel Valley Music Studio and in the music department of Carmel Zevulun High School. He is a bachelor's degree at Echo College in collaboration with Kiryat Ono College Since 2018.

Rotem Dror

Sound designer

Sound Designer and Musician. Member of the Israeli music band 'Giraffes' (93-07) .Lecturer: Tel Aviv University and Minshar School of Art. Education: Piano Studies (87), Philosophy Tel Aviv University (98), Sound Design "Hed" College (99) Sound editor (Selection): 'Individual Stealth' (10), 'Jellyfish' (07), 'Beaufort' (07), 'Someone to Run With' (06) , As well as TV series W The Switch, 'Saturdays and Holidays', 'The Bourgeois' and more.

Katarzyna ISkara

Executive Producer

Katarzyna Iskra – born and raised in the Polish mountains. She has graduated in psychology and Hebrew Studies at Warsaw University. She took her first steps in directing at The Steve Tisch Film and Television School at Tel Aviv University and is a graduate of Gdynia Film School.

Director's  Statement image

On the last day of my visit in Warsaw to which I came in order to present a film in a festival, a short tour was scheduled for the directors. Amongst the historical descriptions the guide revealed her personal knowledge of the stories of some of the local ghosts. I realized, at once, the price that has to be paid for the attempt to bury lives, memories and culture. The local ghosts caught me and since then – I'm there - meeting people, studying and investigating the phenomenon. After the war, machines turned the debris into dough from which bricks were made, that in turn, were used to build the new houses. The new tragedy is that no one bothered to tell the excited residents – who found a home for themselves after the war – what was buried underground and what materials were used to build their houses. Many of them were not concerned about it then, and some of them are not concerned about it now. But the ones that showed some sensitivity, especially the younger residents that join the neighborhood nowadays, find it difficult to accept the fact that they actually live in a huge cemetery. But almost in every place, someone lives on the ruins of a previous culture. A private person in a "primitive" society who feels the existence of ghosts would probably call a ghosts-expeller. The expeller would have probably mumbled a prayer, spread some incense and the ghosts would be gone in no time. But how do we deal with ghosts, real ones or metaphorical ones, in the modern, Western world? Is there even an option to expel the ghosts of history that bother us as communities? Should we expel them, or maybe, learn how to live in peace with them?