A multi-generational story about trauma, resilience, and hope passed down through a refugee family
The family's history and trauma from the 1919 pogroms are introduced through storytelling and family gatherings.
Norm faces challenges as an immigrant child while the family grapples with how to process their trauma.
Through encounters with different characters, Norm learns about resilience and finding joy despite hardship.
The family comes to terms with their past, finding a way to pass on hope rather than trauma to the next generation.
Based her grandfather’s boyhood in St. Louis, Yasmin Gorenberg tells a story of the pain passed from refugee parents to their children and the hope that can overcome it. “40 Nickels” captures the image of a generation of immigrants to the United States in the 1920’s and 1930’s and through that spotlights the effects of the 1919 pogroms in Eastern Europe. This is a film about parents and children: how trauma never leaves a family, and how hope and resilience is also passed down. It asks the question: Can a new generation look at the world with wonder rather than fear?
Yasmin Gorenberg