Interviews with the Dead. Heddy Honigmann: Memory Made Visible

Heddy Honigmann transforms silent monuments into speaking stones whose expressive power is universal. This is an art in which she has no equal, and one that has won her many awards as a maker of documentary films. The faces that Honigmann presents in her films are never just talking heads; they are faces that speak to us and come to life through their stories. Honigmann does not interview these people; she has a conversation with them. In interviews, the answers are often fixed beforehand, but Honigmann wants to be surprised by her conversations. She always keeps the focus firmly on the unadorned storytellers, avoiding any prettification, because that would detract from what her work is all about: making visible the stories behind the faces.