A runaway horse roams through a post-war European landscape. The animal’s encounters and confrontations during its search for a home makes what a traumatised grandfather could never pass on to his family tangible. What does it feel like to start living after trying to simply survive for so long?

Many years after his passing, a grandfather’s war trauma still haunts a family. To survive the Second World War, he made the drastic decision to completely erase his identity. For a Jewish man, every personal expression posed a risk. A glance, a word, a facial expression, a spontaneous laugh—each time there was the fear that he would betray his true self with it. Being himself became his greatest danger, inconspicuousness his greatest strength.

For those who, like him, find themselves in such a situation, mistrust becomes second nature, restraint an art of survival, and silence a hiding place. Eventually, these reflexes become so deeply ingrained that they become the new normal, even when the danger has long since passed. Thus a tragic paradox arises: what once saved your life later starts to stand in the way of being able to live your life. Slowly but surely, you become trapped in an inward-looking world, in survival reflexes that can persist for generations.

An essayistic archival film about life after survival.

Production details:

By Misja Pekel
Written by Misja Pekel and Marleen van der Werf
Production by Studio Biarritz in coproduction with HUMAN
Status: In development