“Do my kids think I’m nuts? Of course, everyone in my family thinks I’m nuts.”

So begins a new documentary film Fioretta, making its Israel debut October 8 at Tel Aviv’s ANU Museum of the Jewish People. The unseen voice behind these arresting words is that of Randol “Randy” Schoenberg a most dedicated family history research nut or more accurately, genealogist.

Researching family history has become a lucrative international business with major web-based commercial entities such as Ancestry.com, Geni.com, and My Heritage, founded and run by Israeli technologists. Schoenberg has positioned himself somewhat on the leading edge for millions of users, as an adviser to Geni.com and a consultant to ANU as it develops an application for museum visitors designed to enhance their visitor experience.

Thus Fioretta represents a collaboration between the genealogist and a creative filmmaker screened by ANU Museum all with a larger calling than just the release of a documentary film. For Schoenberg, the film allows the somewhat painstaking step-by-step genealogy research process to come alive.

A detective-adventure treasure hunt

Fioretta brings viewers into a detective-adventure treasure hunt, finding hundreds-of-years-old documents, venues such as synagogues, and even gravestones all connecting Schoenberg’s Jewish ancestors dating back hundreds of years. The film is also a tour of Jewish life, which many think disappeared with the millions of Jews murdered during the Holocaust. Yet, it’s surprising that Schoenberg’s research turns up very significant proof of the lives of his family ancestors across Europe.

Schoenberg is best known as the lawyer recruited by Holocaust survivor Maria Altmann to recover extremely rare and valuable Gustav Klimt art created in the early 20th century. Altmann’s story was memorably told in the award-winning 2015 film Woman in Gold. Schoenberg’s character was played by Ryan Reynolds and Maria Altmann was played by Academy Award winner Dame Helen Mirren.

Now Schoenberg is the star of the documentary film joined by his youngest son Joey who agreed to participate in the European filmed journey despite the fact he didn’t share his father’s passion for discovering family history.

Schoenberg’s story is creatively told in a mystery travelogue format by American-Israeli filmmaker Matthew Mishory.

The venue chosen for the screening, the ANU Museum fits with the central motivation behind the film as collecting and making family histories accessible to museum visitors is a central element of the reimagined, renovated, and re-opened ANU according to CEO Dan Tadmor.

“When you’re telling a story about the historic journey of the Jewish people you use every creative means available so the story comes alive to visitors,” says Tadmor.

In the able hands of filmmaker Mishory, Joey is the increasingly fascinated recipient of the transmission of memory of Schoenberg’s research featured in the film. Mishory brought a unique sensibility to the film project of an American born to Israeli parents and grandparents.

“Obviously genealogy is Randy’s passion,” Mishory said in a recent conversation.

“I don’t think of this film as being primarily or even significantly about genealogy. I really see it as being about the history of a family and how that story over 500 years is somehow a microcosm for or representative of the Jewish story in Europe.”

“As an Israeli living in LA, I am in kind of a unique position in that I have a foot in the Diaspora and a foot in Israel, a citizen of both countries.”

Mishory was drawn to the documentary project for the opportunity to help tell the Jewish peoplehood story prior to the Holocaust. He feels the film helps this history come more alive and relevant to Israelis and Jews around the world. Through Schoenberg’s discovered family history, Fioretta demonstrates the tremendous contributions and accomplishments of Europe’s Jews.

“I think that if you take account of the Jewish experience over a thousand or so years in Europe, it is a story of great success that ends very badly.”

“But the accomplishments and the contributions to European society and in really every stage of the sort of emergence of what we call Western civilization always included Jews,” says Mishory.

‘Fioretta’ will be streamed later this year and into 2024 on Israeli cable networks.