Avalon

This family chronicle about Russian-Polish emigrés in Baltimore is based on the story of Barry Levinson’s own grandfather, who emigrated to the USA in 1914, and his descendants. Sam Krichinsky, the patriarch, is now living in an old people’s home. His stories form the basis of a family epos spanning three generations that also describes how ‘old America’ is fading away: “If I had known that all of this was to vanish I would have made a point of trying to remember it better,” he tells his grandchildren. – “Armin Mueller-Stahl is the film’s great unifying life force.” (Gerhard Midding, Die Tageszeitung, 14.3.1991).