Preceded by short:Wittgenstein Tractatus (Peter Forgacs, Hungary, 1992). Using found footage to capture phenomenological states, Forgacs beautifully illustrates a series of aphorisms from Wittgenstein's writings. (15 min excerpt)Having carefully collected home movies from the years surrounding the Second World War, Hungarian artist Peter Forgacs uses them to render lyrical portraits of bourgeois Jewish families which are often invested with a penetrating sense of tragedy. The Maalstroom traces the Peereboom family, Flora, Jozeph, and their three sons, from the early thirties to the early forties when Holland is occupied by Nazi forces. Living just outside Amsterdam, the Peerebooms lead a comfortable life, almost an idyll, as businesses prosper and the children grow and marry. A trip to Paris, the birth of babies, service in the Red Cross, a procession with Queen Wilhelmina, weddings at a downtown synagogue-and all the while, just outside the frame, National Socialism is advancing. Driven by Tibor Szemzó's haunting score, The Maalstroom charts the private complacency of a family seeking normalcy in the worst of times. It's an ominous yet sublime poetry.-Steve Seid