To Live and Survive

To Live and Survive (2025) blends Documentary elements. Top cast includes Matthias Ramon Jaklitsch and Erich Finsches. It draws from real-world events while keeping the focus on character stakes.

Actor: Matthias Ramon Jaklitsch

The documentary portrays Erich Finsches, a true Viennese original and Holocaust survivor. Based on over six years of collected material by director Matthias Jaklitsch, who supported Erich on his travels, the film shows him as a positive, humorous, but also argumentative and unique personality in all his humanity. At 97, Erich continues to tirelessly advocate for remembrance of the past, attending memorial ceremonies and schools to spread his message of "Never Again." Instead of a traditional "eyewitness narrative," the film not only documents Erich's life, his youth during Nazi persecution, and his rebuilding of a new life after the war, but also the relationship between the director and the protagonist.