The Lark Farm: A Kristallnacht Commemorative Screening

On the night of 9–10 November 1938, synagogues were set alight and Jewish homes and businesses were destroyed across Germany and Austria. Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass,” marked a turning point on the road to the Holocaust, as state-sanctioned persecution gave way to open violence.

To mark the anniversary, the Cape Town Holocaust & Genocide Centre, in partnership with the Italian-South African Cultural Centre (CCIS), invites you to a screening of The Lark Farm (La masseria delle allodole), directed by the acclaimed Italian filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.

Booking is essential. Please call 021 462 5553 or email admin@holocaust.org.za to reserve your seat.

About the film

Based on the novel by Antonia Arslan, The Lark Farm follows a prosperous Armenian family in a small Anatolian town in 1915. As the First World War unfolds and persecution escalates around them, their comfortable lives are torn apart and swept into the Armenian Genocide. Told through the eyes of a family and a love story caught between communities, the film is a moving portrait of how quickly neighbours can become victims, and of the courage and loss that follow.

Why this film, on this night

The Armenian Genocide shaped the thinking of Raphael Lemkin, the Polish-Jewish lawyer who coined the word “genocide” and campaigned to have it recognised as a crime under international law. By screening this film on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, we reflect on the Holocaust alongside the wider history of genocide, and on how hatred, dehumanisation and exclusion can pave the way for mass violence.