We have filmed our protagonist Yaar and his family for three years in Germany, Poland and Israel.
Yaar was born in Israel, but grew up in Germany, far away from Judaism and the story of his grandparents. As a child, his grandmother Rina was smuggled out of the Płaszów concentration camp, along with her little brother. She never talked about what happened to her during this time. Yaar's father Ilei, who was born twenty years after the war, still suffers from the Holocaust today. Yaar accuses him of having established himself as a victim.
But one day, Yaar is attacked with a knife on the street because he is Jewish. For the first time, he himself feels like a victim. And he has an idea: With the computer game “Als Gott schlief” (“When God Was Asleep”), he wants to address the Holocaust in a way that history lessons cannot. Above all, he wants to take control of his own story.
Sarah and Marcel, two friends of Yaar’s, collaborate with him on the development of his computer game. Yaar decides to model one of the game’s protagonists, a little Jewish girl, after his grandmother Rina. Together with his friends, he visits Rina’s birthplace Krakow, where he uncovers a terrible family secret.
So begins a painful confrontation with their own history. Yaar has to find his way between the trauma of preceding generations and his own claim to an unburdened life.
