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Israel, Poland & Colombia Partner on Comic Drama ‘My Neighbor Adolf’ (EXCLUSIVE)

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Israel’s 2-Team Productions, Poland’s Film Produkcja and Vandalo Colombia are partnering on “My Neighbor Adolf,” an offbeat comic drama starring David Hayman (“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”) and Udo Kier (“Armageddon,” “Blade”) that is set to begin filming in Medellin, Colombia, later this month. Leon Prudovsky will direct from a screenplay he wrote with Dmitry Malinsky.

The film tells the story of Polsky (Hayman), a lonely and grumpy Holocaust survivor living in the Colombian countryside, who suspects that his new neighbor is Adolf Hitler (Kier). When nobody believes him, he sets off on a detective mission to uncover the truth, soon discovering that the only way to prove it is to befriend his mysterious neighbor.

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Prudovsky said: “‘My Neighbor Adolf’ is a comedy, because a Holocaust survivor, who believes his new neighbor is Hitler, is comic. Because an old man obsessively conducting an absurd investigation is comic.

But then again, the story is more of a tragedy. Because loneliness is tragic. Because demonizing your neighbor is tragic. Because not being able to put the traumatic past behind you is tragic.

He continued: And this is almost a thriller, though the real dramatic question of the film is not about the new neighbor’s true identity, but whether the two lonely old men can overcome their prejudices and suspicions and build a friendship based on their common humanity.”

“My Neighbor Adolf” is produced by Haim Mecklberg and Estee Yacov-Mecklberg of 2-Team Productions (2016 Sundance Grand Jury Award winner “Sand Storm,” 2014 Venice Audience Award winner “The Farewell Party”) and Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska (“High Life,” “Mr. Jones”) and Staszek Dziedzic of Film Produkcja, in association with Juan Pablo Lasserre, Diego Conejero and Julio Cesar Gaviria of Vandalo Colombia and Moshe Edery of United King Films.

It is supported by the Rabinovitch Film Fund, Polish Film Institute and Colombian Film Fund.

We come from three different continents and three different cultures. But there’s one thing that united us to cooperate and, at times, fight for the production of this film. This is our love of cinema,” the producers told Variety.

Our love for films that say something about the human existence without being too pretentious; films that describe people in difficult situations but tend to do it with a generous smile; films that even when boasting grumpy, unfriendly old characters are doing it with the utmost sympathy towards their protagonist and even their antagonists, since they are all human.

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