Ask Adele
ASK ADELE is a documentary portrait of my mom, Adele Daniller, a Holocaust survivor and cinephile who, in her 60s, launched a second career as a film and TV extra. The short film is a snapshot of her life and work, combining cinema verité, interview, and clips from her varied appearances.
Born in Poland in 1938, Adele fled to Vienna with her parents using false identities, and hid in plain sight. Her family used to meet secretly in cinema houses during the war, to talk under the cover of darkness and plot their next moves. She grew up seeing many American films, and dreamt of going to Hollywood and getting involved in the film business.
ASK ADELE deals with echoes of the past, and how they inform the present. It is a film about memory and transforming trauma. How do you speak about something unspeakable? How do people turn something painful into something creative?
A selection of film stills from the project Ask Adele
