A documentary portrait of Israel Becker, founder of the first professional Yiddish theatrical company in post-war Germany and writer and star of the historic film Long Is the Road, the first feature to portray the Holocaust from a Jewish point of view. The Balcony captures Becker at age 83, with an apartment adorned with his own paintings, many of which show family members killed during the Holocaust.
These images, along with footage from Long Is the Road, reveal a man whose past is always with him. Becker replies, “I am constantly on the run. All my memories are inhabited by countless escape instincts that I know not their origins. That is my fate, and I have lived until now only because I obeyed it.”
