On Sunday March 11th at 4 PM at Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust there will be a film screening and discussion with Director Philippe Mora with his film, Monsieur Mayonnaise, chronicling Philippe’s father’s clandestine role in the French Resistance during World War II and his mother’s miraculous escape en route to Auschwitz.
Monsieur Mayonnaise is an artist’s epic adventure into his Jewish family’s Resistance to Nazi oppression, revealing an incredible secret past. French Australian artist and Award winning film-maker, Philippe Mora, adopts a Film Noir persona to tell his family’s story. He also packs his paints and easel, as he embarks on a journey to create an audacious graphic book about his parents, their survival, and the Holocaust. From LA to Berlin, Paris to Melbourne, Monsieur Mayonnaise is a richly layered road movie starring artists, real life heroes, Nazi villains and baguettes with lashings of mayonnaise that contain life saving secrets. Premiered at the 2017 Berlinale Film Festival, it has become an ongoing worldwide festival hit.
Philippe Mora is an acclaimed French Australian writer, director, producer and artist. He has made over forty films internationally in many genres including documentaries, dramas, experimental, science fiction and historical films. These include Brother Can You Spare a Dime, Swastika, Return of Captain Invincible, Communion, Beast Within, German Sons, and Death of a Soldier. Born in Paris in 1949, he grew up in Melbourne, where he was a pioneer of the modern Australian film industry with Mad Dog Morgan. He started the magazine Cinema Papers. His parents, Georges and Mirka Mora, were key figures in the Modernist art world of Australia. His godfather was mime Marcel Marceau. He had a retrospective of his art work showing in London at England & Co. Gallery in 2008. New Horizons Film Festival, Wroclaw, Poland, held a 7 film retrospective in 2010. Oldenburg Film Festival, Germany held a retrospective in 2014. He is a member of the Directors Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His art and films are represented in museums and archives internationally, and the National Archives of the United States has established the Philippe Mora Collection. The National Film Archives of Australia has an extensive collection of his work. He is currently completing features Day and Sunlight and Strange Matters.