‘In Heaven, Underground’’ is an oddity: an upbeat film about a cemetery.
Directed by Britta Wauer, the beautifully lensed documentary chronicles the past and present of the 130-year-old Weissensee Cemetery in Berlin, the oldest Jewish burial place still in use in Europe. Its 100 secluded, bucolic acres hold 115,000 graves, and survived the Third Reich intact. Even its vast archives were untouched by the Germans.
The film blends contemporary interviews with archival footage and old family photographs as it combines historical fact with personal stories.
Its subjects include tourists, mourners, a third-generation gravedigger, an ornithologist studying the site’s winged residents — even a family that lives in the historic cemetery.