JoyDrops champions awards-eligible documentary shorts about joy, a counterweight to a category often dominated by tragedy. Good News Network has partnered with JoyDrops to spotlight these films and talk with the filmmakers behind them.
“When he turned 99, I was like, okay, it’s really now or never,” Ora DeKornfeld told GNN.
For years, her grandfather had turned down every request she made to record his story. He was formal and private, and he never talked about the life he left behind in Hungary. “So I need to get a little more creative about this endeavor,” she said.
Her creative solution became The Grandfather Puzzle, the latest film in GNN’s JoyDrops series.
The film
DeKornfeld’s grandfather left behind a castle, a baronial title and a life in Hungary that he would never discuss. What he loved was jigsaw puzzles. So she traveled to the castle where he grew up, photographed it and turned the image into a puzzle. Then she brought it home to Baltimore, hoping it would “unlock the silence that has defined their relationship.”
The trip held surprises. When she arrived, the whole town turned out to welcome the returning baroness with gifts and speeches. “It was so absurd and overwhelming, and also humorous,” she said.
But no one mentioned why her family had left in the first place. DeKornfeld wanted the film to hold space for the weight of the Holocaust and what it cost her grandfather, without letting that loss define him. She felt it was important not to “reduce the Holocaust narrative to just victimhood.”
No regrets
The puzzle didn’t unlock his memories. He died in August, months after the film premiered, without ever agreeing to watch it.
Still, DeKornfeld says, making the film brought her closer to him. “I had to go very far away to feel close to him, which is kind of ironic,” she said. “But when he passed away, I realized I had no regrets about our relationship.”
That’s the lesson she hopes viewers take with them. “Everyone can relate to having a loved one who they want to be closer to but can’t for some reason,” she said. “All we can do is try our hardest and put in the effort to be close. And then it’s up to them.”
Room for surprise
DeKornfeld came to documentary through video journalism, where she told much heavier stories. The Grandfather Puzzle is her first personal film, and she also co-directed the documentary short Stalin’s Boys.
She thinks humor can be the riskier choice. “Humor is one of the scariest sort of public acts of art, and so it makes sense that people avoid it,” she told GNN. “I wish documentaries held more space for surprise.”
That’s what draws her to JoyDrops. She loves films that explore real issues “with a realistic dose of how absurd and funny life is in general,” she said. “I’m excited that JoyDrops is pushing that kind of work out there.”
Watch The Grandfather Puzzle above. JoyDrops is a partnership between GNN and Switchboard Magazine featuring five documentary shorts that lean into hope. A new film and director interview arrives every Wednesday. Learn more about JoyDrops.
