A personal and cinematic journey by two-time Golden Calf winner Paul Cohen (Janine, 2010) through post-war Europe. Based on the travelogue of his Jewish father Bram Cohen, his diary entries from the Japanese internment camp, and previously unseen archival material, Paul Cohen paints a picture of post-war Europe through his father’s eyes.
In the spring of 1947, the young student Bram Cohen travels by train through Germany, on his way to Copenhagen. Half of his Jewish family has been murdered. Filled with bitterness, he looks at the devastated country and the defeated people. “Hunger is written all over their faces. Well done, but still not nearly enough!” he writes in his travel journal. But at the station in Hamburg, everything changes. Along the tracks, young children with crooked legs due to calcium deficiency wander. Instead of hatred, Bram feels forgiveness and compassion. He gives his bread to a five-year-old girl. Once in Copenhagen,
Bram falls in love with a young Danish woman, whom he will marry. Director Paul
Cohen is their youngest son. In The Man with the Smile, we retrace this train journey and meet travelers of today who also each have a story about forgiveness.
Paul Cohen also wrote a book about the experiences of his grandfather Aäron and
his father Bram during and the period immediately after the war. The book will be available from April 2026.
