It Takes A Family is a family drama about secrets and repressed memories. Danish film director, Susanne Kovacs, is the grandchild of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Susanne’s German mother and her Danish Jewish father got married believing that the war was a closed chapter and that their different backgrounds would not affect their future together. But they were wrong. When Susanne is born, in the eyes of her Jewish grandparents she is a child of the enemy – a constant reminder of a painful past never reconciled within the family.

Now, Susanne wants to break the silence. But her probing questions bring back painful memories; The unspoken traumas, the secrets and the suppressed feelings are now revealed but Susanne’s mission does not go down well. Is she at all allowed to dig into a family history that holds so many ghosts from the past? And maybe there is more than one truth?

It Takes A Family is a story about the attempt to free yourself from the shadows of the past. It is an intimate story of a family traumatized by the terrors of war but it is also a present-day story of repression, guilt and forgiveness.

Dir. Susanne Kovacs - 58min - 2019 - Denmark

"In Susanne Kovács’s intimate dive into her family history, memory is a tempestuous mistress....this documentary turns into a historical excavation. Startling revelations reveal how violence can breed violence." - The Guardian

"Rare are the films that you wish were longer...a complex, personal story about the director's family that opens a multitude of questions about identity and the transfer of war trauma through generations." - Cineurope

"A sensitive, private exploration of the shadows of the past" - Leipziger Volkszeitung