FOUR HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS AND THEIR FRIENDSHIP IN TIMES OF WAR.

Not the type of documentary that will stun you visually; on the contrary, it has little to offer technically. However, the portrait it paints of four women in their 90s makes much more of an emotional impact. The friends have an increasingly unique experience in common: being Holocaust survivors who are still alive.

After the war, they settled down in Stockholm where playing bridge helps keep them alert, along with a social life that prevents them from drowning in the horrifying memories of the past. The film is a tribute to the indomitable human spirit and the ultimate victory over Hitler. It also addresses the latest chapter of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and paints a realistically bleak future.

The ladies have charisma to spare.

2025-Sweden. 82 min. Color. Directed by Bengt Bok, Alberto Herskovits.

Trivia: Original title: Bridgespelerskorna.

Last word: “The challenge was making [the ladies] understand that their present lives were interesting to us. We wanted to show the consequences of the Holocaust, their trauma, in their everyday lives. They were in Auschwitz as teenagers, 14-16 years old, and it has obviously affected them. We wanted to move away from the kind of talking head-interviews where you just drone on about the Holocaust and instead have it appear in other ways; conversations, playing bridge. At first, they were afraid that bridge-playing would come across as trivializing their stories, but the longer we worked on this, two and a half to three years, eventually they got into it.” (Bok, interview at the Swedish Film Institute)