I found an interesting story by Tom Teicholz and published in the Forbes web site:
Given current events, Jewish identity and Jewish history are very much existential issues occurring in real time.
However, documentary films such as Fioretta, directed by Israeli-American Matthew Mishory about Randol Schoenberg (known familiarly as Randy) and his 18-year-old son Joey’s travels to uncover their family history remind us of the perseverance and the flourishing of Jewish life before and after periods of destruction and upheaval.
If the name Schoenberg sounds familiar – there is good reason. Randy’s grandfather (Joey’s great-grandfather) was the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg who came to Los Angeles following the Nazi takeover of Germany.
Randy himself, a graduate of Princeton and USC Law School, achieved no small measure of fame himself as the attorney who won the “Woman in Gold” Klimt painting Holocaust restitution case, which was the basis for the movie of that name starring Ryan Reynolds as Randy and Helen Mirren as Maria Altmann, the rightful owner of the painting.
Randy is also well known in his native Los Angeles for his philanthropy and for having served as the executive director of Holocaust Museum Los Angeles. He is also a curator for the Jewish genealogy website Geni.com, where he focuses on the family trees of Holocaust survivors and their families.
As is evident, as the documentary opens, Randy is genealogy obsessed. Joey, not so much. However, together they embark on a journey that takes them to Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Italy in search of their ancestors.
No ordinary journey, no ordinary adventurers makes for no ordinary documentary – it is poignant, and at moments funny, and always personal and intimate. We meet the people they encounter on their journey, related or not, genealogy obsessed as Randy (or not).
You can read more at: https://tinyurl.com/59efcs2x.