In AFTER: POETRY DESTROYS SILENCE, contemporary poets confront the 
Holocaust. In this dramatic hybrid documentary, with performances by Melissa Leo, Géza Röhrig, and Bo Corre, poets respond to the Holocaust and address the responsibility and necessity for art. The first of its kind, where poetry and cinema combine and transcend time. AFTER is an exploration of poetry written about the Shoah. Contemporary poets respond to the Holocaust and talk about the importance and 
necessity for poetry in a world that still grapples with genocide. Rather than seeing the devastation, AFTER shows how poets respond to catastrophe and write in its aftermath. The film is ultimately about human resiliency, the power and courage to forge new lives, and the value of poetry in looking to the past to help create a better future. Weaving a narrative, each poem 
has its own story, main character(s), and point of view, each acting as a short island with the entire film. AFTER also interlaces sequences of music, archival footage, personal photographs, and documents. The power of the words, performances, commentary, cinematic interpretations, sounds, and silences bring the poems to life on screen, offering a modern chronicle of poets examining history and the current day. As survivors leave us each day, their voices live inside the poems we include in AFTER. One 
poet speaks the line, her father, a survivor, told her, “Home is anywhere they let you in.” The film serves as both a model and a warning for an increasingly divided and violent planet. Director Richard Kroehling (Albert Einstein: How I See The World, Confessions) joins us to talk about his powerful and eerily prescient multi-dimensional documentary film that benefits from a spectacular contribution from cinematographer Lisa Renzler, and bolstered by a cast of actors, poets, writers and educators that includes; Melissa Leo, Geza Rohrig, Bo Corre, Joanna Wallfisch, Josh Harto, Taylor Mali, Janet Kirchheimer, Paul Celan, Yehuda Amichai, Edward Hirsch, Sabrina Orah Mark, Charles Carter, Christine Poreba, Walter Fiden and Cornelious Eady
To find out more go to: after.film
Watch in a theatre: after.film/screenings
AFTER: POETRY DESTROYS SILENCE opens Friday, November 8 at the Laemmle Royal Theater in Los Angeles, with other cities to follow
About the filmmaker – Richard Kroehling’s work includes dramatic features, documentary, crime TV, and intimate portraits of some of the world’s renowned thinkers, as well as film and video art that looks to transcend existing forms. He directed “Albert Einstein: How I See The World” with William Hurt for PBS American Masters and the feature “World Without End” for England’s Film Four. A two-time Emmy award winner, he has directed over fifty hours of crime docudramas for networks in the United States and Europe. He created the controversial TV series “Confessions”, hailed as “visionary and stunning”, which was later installed at the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. His films and video art installations have been exhibited at film festivals, networks, and art museums around the world, including MOMA, The Jewish Museum in New York City, and the Lars Von Trier’s Gesamt project at the Kunsthalle in Copenhagen. “Dollarland”, a multi-screen installation of an imaginary American city, is a collaboration with his long-time cinematographer Lisa Rinzler. “Dollarland” premiered at the Woodstock Artist Association Museum (WAAM) and showed at Art Basel Miami in 2019. Richard Kroehling will direct his adaptation of Swedish playwright Lars Noren’s “War” in 2024. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the New York Council on the Arts. richardkroehling.com
About the filmmaker – Lisa Rinzler is known as a master of lighting, has an international reputation, and lensed many documentaries, feature films, and experimental works. Her credits include Academy Award nominated “Pollock“, “Dead Presidents”, “Menace II Society”, and she worked with Martin Scorsese on “American Masters” and “No Direction Home: Bob Dylan”, as well as “It’s The Soul of a Man” with Wim Wenders. Lisa Rinzler won the Sundance Independent Spirit Award in 1993 and 1999. She was featured in the American Film Institute’s “Visions of Light: The Art of Cinematography” featuring nine of the world’s greatest motion picture camera artists. In 2016, Lisa Rinzler shot the documentary “Don’t Blink”, a portrait of Robert Frank. Most recently, she lensed “A Man of His Word”, a portrait of Pope Francis directed by Wim Wenders, as well as the Academy Award winning documentary short in 2019 called “How to Skate in a Warzone (If you are a Girl)”. lisarinzler.com