Watermarks (DVD, 2005)

WATERMARKS is a heartwarming documentary from writer/director/producer Yaron Zilberman. Shifting between the past and present, the film tells the historic tale of the groundbreaking Jewish sports club Hakoah Vienna, which was a rebuttal to the anti-Semitic Aryan paragraph. The Viennese Jewish women's swim team, which was founded in 1909, became a world-renowned unit by the early 1930s. Of course, these were the tumultuous years when Hitler began to take control of Europe, and after the 1938 Anschluss, the club was immediately shut down. Fortunately, the swimmers all managed to escape Austria and find refuge in scattered countries throughout the world. Sixty-five years later, Zilberman tracked down the members of the legendary women's team in order for them to reunite in Vienna and have one final group swim. But before that fateful day, Zilberman met with each woman, who shared her own personal memories of those fateful years.Though the women in the film are octogenarians, each one of them has managed to retain a youthful spirit and vigor. Beautifully photographed by Tom Hurwitz (HARLAN COUNTY U.S.A., WILD MAN BLUES), WATERMARKS is a tenderly crafted film that has a crowd-pleasing, universal message. Zilberman's admiration for these fiercely determined women bursts forth in every frame.