“Friday July 11, 1941, the weather is nice with some warm wind blowing. Only few clouds are in the sky. Shots were heard coming out of the forest”.

These are the opening words in the diary of Kazimierz Sakowicz, a Pole who was living in Ponar, a village about 10 km west of Vilna, the capital city of Lithuania. A place that during the years 1941-1944 served as an extermination site for more than one hundred thousand people, most of them Jews.

Sakowicz hears the shots and understands that something strange is going on in the vicinity. He decides to secretly write down what he hears and sees. Altogether he documents, 835 days of genocide.

Through the guidance of Sakowicz’ diary, “Out of the Forest” tells the story of the people who have been living in the backyard, of a mass murder site. The story of the girl, who herd’s her cows on the open grave fields, the story of the woman who was forced to cook for the murderers, of the man who traded in clothes of the dead, and the woman who refused to open the door to a fugitive that just minutes before barley escaped the execution.
It is also a story about neighbours and community in hardest of times. The story of how different communities, Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews, see the same horrifying events, totally different, and how 60 years later, each community refuse to take any responsibilities for its actions and tends to blame all responsibility on others. 
 
The film is built as collage. Tales of the locals, the testimonies of victims who miraculously escaped death at Ponar, the written diary, and images of Ponar today. No archive footage, no images of corpses or blood, but only discrete questioning and sensitive camera, succeeds in penetrating the thin quiet surface of the village.

Produced with the support of:
Noga communication, - channel 8,
The Israeli Film Service,
The  Jerusalem Cinemateque