My Neighbor Adolf
Treating serious and painful topics with humour is an extremely complex task. Not every comedian has the ability and the courage to expose long-time trauma using speculative satire. Israeli director Leon Prudovsky embraces controversy and brings holocaust suffering into an eternal sarcastic conflict between two antagonistic neighbours. This politically incorrect and suspensefully bittersweet humanist comedy about an almost impossible friendship with the most evil enemy is brought to life by fascinating, ironic and grumpy performances by two wonderfully sparring gentlemen – David Hayman and Udo Kier.
Gripping historical facts are charmingly reimagined in this startling “what if” fantasy which presents an alternative truth: Adolf Hitler didn’t shoot himself, but ran away to hide in South America with Adolf Eichmann, Josef Mengele and other Nazi war criminals. The disgraced dictator hides under the name of Herzog and finds a new home in an abandoned farmstead house somewhere in the highlands of Colombia with his German Shepard. However, the meticulously secretive beardy imposter miscalculates the one-in-a-million chance that a holocaust survivor lives in the only nearby house.
On the other side of the fence, the petulant, stubborn and scarred loner Marek Polsky unconditionally hates and blames all the Germans. The peculiarly blue eyes of his strange new neighbour and the constant malicious conversations in German in the neighbour’s garden only strengthen his suspicions. The obsessed Polsky is certain – it is the same evil Hitler whom he met at the then still peacetime chess tournament of 1934.
The local authorities and Mossad secret agents do not believe his categoricallly relentless theory that Hitler’s suicide in the bunker in 1945 was just deep fake news and the real Hitler survived to live in disguise for 15 years. Polsky has no other choice but to start investigating the habits and behaviour of his unusual suspect. The self-taught detective goes on an unimaginable mission to befriend Herzog aka Hitler with the intention of uncovering more hints and clues.
Edvinas Pukšta
Leon Prudovsky was born in St. Petersburg, Russia and raised in Israel. He emerged to the world of cinema in 2005 with his diploma film from The Steve Tisch School of Film and Television (Tel Aviv University), "Dark Night" which was voted finalist at the Student Academy Awards (TM) and received Special Mention in Venice Film Festival and dozens of other awards. In 2009 he co-wrote and directed his first feature film "Five Hours from Paris" which was officially selected for Toronto Film Festival and received awards in Haifa, Nice and Napoli. In 2014 he was offered to direct a period drama series "Family Album" for channel 1, Moscow, which had a tremendous success in Russian speaking world. Leon writes his own scripts, equally directs other projects and serves as a script consultant and artistic adviser in different Film Funds and private production companies. Leon is based in Tel Aviv and Paris. "My neighbor Adolf" is his second full-length feature film.
Filmography
Hamesh Shaot me'Pariz (Five Hours from Paris, 2009), My Neighbor Adolf (2022)