Serving Larchmont Village, Hancock Park, and the Greater Wilshire neighborhoods of Los Angeles since 2011.

Windsor Village Filmmaker Nigel Dick’s “Berlin Calling”

Kastle Waserman in "Berlin Calling"
Kastle Waserman in “Berlin Calling”

How did a punk­-loving girl with a Mohawk unknowingly touch a nerve in her father that traced back to his time under Hitler’s oppression of the Jews? The documentary “Berlin Calling” by Windsor Village resident Nigel Dick follows a second­‐generation Holocaust survivor on a journey to uncover her father’s story, and reveals how the emotional impact of one of history’s most harrowing times is handed down through generations. BerlinCalling_12_NigelDick

Nigel Dick,  a resident of Windsor Village for 15 years, spent seven years writing, shooting, directing and editing “Berlin Calling”. He not only shot and directed the film in Europe and in Los Angeles, but edited the footage, recorded the narration, and wrote and recorded the soundtrack himself.

Dick is British-born and has a long career of directing and shooting music videos, documentaries and feature films, with this project evolving naturally out of a friendship and a trip abroad.

The film’s ‘leading lady’, Kastle Waserman, had never been to Berlin and had only a vague idea of her father’s early history in Germany. When Dick traveled with her to Berlin in 2007, they had no idea their visit would eventually evolve into a full-blown documentary film.

“We didn’t set out to make a film,” Dick told the Larchmont Buzz. “We set to record a trip to Berlin to see if we could find someone’s grave and take some snapshots while there on holiday. And then the next day we were allowed to shoot in the Wannsee Villa before the doors opened and we knew we were on to something. All the while the technology was changing and on each trip we took I had a new camera system and we changed from Mini DV tape to P2 cards to compact flash cards and portable hard drives. In the end we used six different kinds of cameras, which recorded picture and sound differently, and it took 7 years and four trips to Europe. It’s the old story: if we knew what we were letting ourselves in for, we might never have started.”

It was all well worth it, according to the reviews of  “Berlin Calling” which calls the 90 minute film “moving and riveting” and “a great lesson in the resilience and adaptability of the human spirit.” The film won the Gold Remi Award at the Houston International Film Festival and is being released on DVD and is now available from Amazon.

“Berlin Calling” will also be available on iTunes and Netflix at the end of April. Take a sneak peak at the preview, below, and put it on your watch list.

Kastle Waserman and her father, xxxx , a Holocaust survivor.
Kastle Waserman and her father, Ben Waserman, a Holocaust survivor.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Julie Grist
Julie Grist
Julie co-founded the Larchmont Buzz with fellow buzzer Mary Hawley in 2011 and served as Editor, Publisher and writer for the hive for many years until the sale of the Buzz in August 2015. She is still circling the hive as an occasional writer.

Related Articles

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Calendar

Latest Articles

.printfriendly { padding: 0 0 60px 50px; }