Silvia has spent al­most her en­tire adult life in a com­mu­ni­ty as a dea­co­ness. Re­cent­ly she star­ted re­gu­lar­ly vi­si­ting the place where her grand­fat­her served as a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp com­man­der. She sym­boli­cal­ly con­fronts her­self there with the res­ponsi­bili­ty for his deeds with per­for­mance art. As she un­wa­ver­ing­ly con­fronts her fa­mi­ly his­to­ry and her own child­hood trau­ma, the Chris­tian wo­man finds her­self at an un­ex­pec­ted tur­ning point.

Silvia discovered ballet as a child. She thrived on it, practiced hard and imagined a future as a pro­fes­si­o­nal dancer. An acci­dent brought an end to her dreams, but she kept a life-­long in­ter­est in bo­di­ly aware­ness, body lan­guage and body the­rapy.

As a young woman, Silvia felt a call­ing to a life of service fol­lo­wing Jesus Christ. In spite of her strong de­sire to marry and have child­ren (a de­sire that would re­main with her dur­ing her whole life), she be­came a dea­co­ness.

Dea­co­nes­ses live a simp­le, ce­li­bate life in a bin­ding com­mu­ni­ty. Their days re­volve around re­gular pray­er and ser­vice to God and to the con­gre­ga­tion. Sil­via re­mains in her com­mu­ni­ty for al­most thir­ty years. She pur­sues an edu­ca­tion and in­crea­sing­ly ma­na­ges to align her vo­ca­tion and her de­sire to serve with her pe­rso­nal gifts. And yet she re­mains be­set by an un­sha­kable lon­ging.

She doesn’t know much about her grand­father, only that he com­man­ded a con­cent­ra­tion camp du­ring the war, for which he spent some time in a Swiss jail in the after­math. She sets off to find out more about him and finds her­self ga­zing into an abyss. She comes to re­cog­nize the shame and the se­cre­cy per­va­ding her fa­mi­ly, and rea­li­zes the bear­ing her grand­fat­her has had on her as a grand­child. She comes across a passage in the Old Testament about God “vi­si­ting the sins” of the fat­hers on the child­ren to the third and fourth ge­ne­ra­tion and re­cog­ni­zes the fa­mi­ly struc­tures that ap­pear to mir­ror this terr­ib­le axi­om. Sis­ter Sil­via starts spea­king out in pub­lic and tell­ing jour­na­lists about her fa­mi­ly his­to­ry. She wants to em­bol­den peop­le bur­dened by si­mi­lar ex­pe­ri­en­ces, strugg­ling with si­mi­lar le­ga­cies. Be­cause to over­come evil, it must be con­fessed, named, brought out of the dark.

The do­cu­men­ta­ry “The Third and Fourth Ge­ne­ra­tion” was filmed over a pe­riod of se­ve­ral years. Du­ring this time, se­ve­ral un­ex­pec­ted chan­ges took place, and al­though Sil­via is in­to her fif­ties, she be­gins a whole new chap­ter in her life.

Deaconess Sister Sil­via app­roa­ched me in 2014 to ask whet­her I would con­si­der ma­king a film about her fa­mi­ly his­tory. Her (Swiss!) grand­fat­her had been a con­cen­t­ra­tion camp com­man­dant in Na­zi Ger­ma­ny, some­thing that cast a dark sha­dow all the way into the pre­sent and that affects her to this day.

I got to know Sil­via through her crea­tive side. She had trained as a dan­cer when she was young and re­gu­lar­ly or­ga­ni­zes dance works­hops. It was her idea to cre­ate a se­ries of per­for­man­ces on the pre­mi­ses of the for­mer con­cent­ra­tion camp.

I was fas­ci­na­ted by both her sto­ry and her per­so­na­li­ty. But I wan­ted to cre­ate a truth­ful port­rait of her, not serve up a film to be her mouth­piece. We ag­reed that I wouldn’t be ma­king a com­mis­sion­ed film. It would be a real do­cu­men­ta­ry, I would be its di­rec­tor, and Sil­via would give her­self over to the pro­cess.

Neit­her of us had the sligh­test idea of the jour­ney that awai­ted us. Anot­her story was behind that of the grand­fat­her, wai­ting to be re­vealed: a pain­ful tale of abuse.
That is the fas­ci­na­ting thing about non-­fic­tion film, es­pe­cial­ly of the long-­term ob­ser­vatio­nal kind. The script for this film wasn’t writ­ten by me, and what hap­pened far ex­ceeds any­thing Sil­via could have fore­seen. It touches upon the mys­tery of fate.

“The Third and Fourth Ge­ne­ra­tion” was pro­duced with­out any state fun­ding or TV par­ti­ci­pa­tion, with a mi­ni­mal bud­get (about CHF 20'000).

I accom­pa­nied Sil­via long­er than was ori­gi­nal­ly planned, from 2016 to 2019. At the end of those three years she made a life-­chan­ging de­ci­sion that I won’t dis­close here. I make an appea­rance in the film as its di­rec­tor to ask the pro­ta­go­nist whet­her the film pro­ject in­flu­enced her de­ci­sion in any way. She ans­wers with a straight yes.

This rai­ses an ethi­cal ques­tion. Shouldn’t a do­cu­men­tary film show life as it is, without inter­fe­ring in any way? Is it le­gi­ti­mate to in­ter­vene as a film­ma­ker? In ac­tu­a­lity, fil­ming a life al­rea­dy means ac­ting upon it. In ot­her words, a do­cu­men­ta­ry film al­ways af­fects the life of its pro­ta­go­nist(s) to a cer­tain de­gree. The tra­di­tions of the essay film and Ci­né­ma Vé­ri­té, to which this film be­longs, seek trans­pa­ren­cy and draw the per­son be­hind the ca­mera into the sto­ry. As a film­maker, I’m not only in­ter­ested in tel­ling a power­ful sto­ry; I’m not a cold, de­tached ca­me­ra, but a com­pa­nion.

“The Third and Fourth Ge­ne­ra­tion” is in­flu­enced by the Po­lish school of do­cu­men­tary. We opted for long, care­ful­ly con­struc­ted shots and a slow edi­ting pace. The aus­tere beau­ty of the scenes and ima­ges are an in­vi­ta­tion to con­temp­lation and spi­ri­tual ref­lec­tion.

Lukas Zünd, di­rec­tor

Lukas Zünd grew up in a large fa­mi­ly in a vil­lage in Eas­tern Swit­zer­land. When he was 15, he in­he­ri­ted his grand­fat­her’s old ca­me­ra and dis­co­vered his ta­lent for cap­tu­ring dai­ly life through ima­ges.

After high school in St.Gal­len, he took the pre­pa­ra­to­ry course at the Zu­rich Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts and de­ci­ded to pur­sue a ca­reer in film. He learned Po­lish and set off for Łódź to stu­dy film di­rec­ting at the Po­lish Na­tio­nal Film School (PWSFTviT). He di­rec­ted se­ve­ral short films there. Af­ter re­tur­ning to Swit­zer­land he worked as a night guard in an es­tab­lish­ment for mar­gina­lized peop­le and as script con­ti­nu­ity su­per­vi­sor.

Lukas Zünd’s short films often port­ray peop­le who be­lieve, or strug­gle to be­lieve in God in dra­ma­tic si­tu­a­tions. Fur­ther pur­su­ing this in­te­rest, he stu­died The­o­lo­gy and be­came an or­dained pas­tor in the re­formed church. He cur­rent­ly lives with his wife in Bä­rets­wil in the Zu­rich Ob­er­land, where he serves as vil­lage pas­tor.

His fas­ci­na­tion with do­cu­men­ta­ry (non-fic­tion) film al­so has the­o­lo­gi­cal mo­tives. It is a real, his­to­ri­cal event that builds the foun­da­tion of Chris­ti­an faith. Each in­di­vi­dual’s real, his­to­ri­cal life on this earth is the real “dra­ma”, and each life sto­ry is all the more in­te­res­ting in as much as it is formed by that pi­vo­tal event.

«The Third and Fourth Ge­ne­ra­tion» is Lu­kas Zünd’s first lon­ger film as an in­de­pen­dent film­ma­ker and pro­du­cer.

Arpil 30, 2023
sho­min­ge­ki – Film­zeit­schrift

February 18, 2023
Schweiz für al­le
(Rus­sian lan­guage ma­ga­zine)

February 9, 2023
IDEA Schweiz

February 9, 2023
Lan­des­kir­chen-Fo­rum

January 24, 2023
Zürcher Oberlän­der

January 22, 2023
Rad­io Zü­ri­see

January 12, 2023
Radio Life Chan­nel

December 14, 2022
Livenet

Crew
Producer, Director, Edi­tor: Lu­kas Zünd
Cinematography: Ar­jun Tal­war
Cinematography in Is­ra­el: Fi­lip Drożdż
Color grading: Ja­rek Ster­c­­z­ew­s­ki
Music: Dan Büsch­len
Sound: Louis F. Go­lay
Sound post pro­duc­ti­on: Ire­na Sus­ka
Art­work: Joa Schmied