Villa Aurora Events Archive
October 2026
Filmmakersbrunch with Florian Baron
Goethe-Institute (1901 W 7th St Ste A/B, Los Angeles, CA 90057)
The film SPEARA by Villa Aurora alumnus Florian Baron follows Mitsuki, a 26-year-old world champion spearfisher. Originally from Japan, she moved abroad at the age of 16 to make a fresh start, far away from a difficult family situation. In the US, Mitsuki discovered her passion for spearfishing and honed her technique while working as a private chef.
SPEARA
Germany (2025) 40 min. Japanese/English with English Subtitles.
Writer-Director: Florian Baron
Cinematography: Johannes Waltermann
Editor: Maja Tennstedt
Sound Designer: Lorenz Fischer
Film Score composer: Jana Irmert
Cast: Mitsuki Hara
Production: Florian Baron
Production Company: RAENDROP Film
Participants
Florian Baron is a filmmaker who took first steps as a filmmaker during high school.
From 2004 until 2006 Florian Baron lived in Japan, where he worked on several film and video art projects.
From 2007-2012 he was a student in the director's department at the University for Film and Television “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam. He directed the documentary “RADIO TAXI” for ARTE, and graduated with his film “THE FINAL CALL.”
In the following years he worked in the USA on his documentaries "Joe Boots" and "STRESS."
In 2020 Florian Baron co-founded the production company Cannery Row Films in Cologne.
Partner
The film is part of the German Current Film Festival presented by the Goethe-Institut Los Angeles.
The President's Tailor
Villa Aurora
Maxmilian Grünfeld learned to sew while mending shirts for SS soldiers in Auschwitz when he was fifteen. Four years later, he re-invented himself as the American Martin Greenfield, and was making suits for the former general and future US president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who liberated him from Buchenwald in 1945. The Presidents’ Tailor is a short documentary about how one man transformed into the other against all odds.
With his infectious smile, resourcefulness, and insistence on “quality with intrinsic value”, Martin Greenfield quickly rose from his humble beginnings as a floor boy at the GGG menswear factory in Brooklyn to become the highbrow tailor of choice for US presidents and celebrities alike. Together with his sons Jay and Tod, Martin built a bespoke menswear empire which now stands alone as a beacon in the once thriving men’s tailoring industry in New York City.
The Presidents’ Tailor interweaves scenes of daily life at Greenfield Clothiers with a journey into Martin’s past, when his son Jay and his children David and Amy retrace Martin’s footsteps across Europe, from his hometown Pavlovo in western Ukraine, to Auschwitz and Buchenwald, where the young Martin lost his entire family. We also travel to the White House with Martin and his wife Arlene, celebrate a Seder with family and friends, and witness moving tributes by longtime customers and dear friends Michael Bloomberg and Colin Powell at Martin’s 90th birthday spectacle.
The Presidents’ Tailor is a poignant tale of resilience, forgiveness and the fine art of bespoke menswear. It is also a reminder of the distinguished craftsmanship which once gave birth to the golden age of American manufacturing.
Participants
Filmmaker and educator Rick Minnich was born and raised in the American West. Rick came of age during the last years of the Cold War. After living on both sides of the Iron Curtain, he settled in Berlin months after the Wall came tumbling down.
Since then, Rick has dedicated his life to building bridges, rather than walls. In his filmmaking and teaching, he is always on the lookout for stories about what motivates and connects us human beings no matter where we live on this beautiful planet of ours.
Rick is a very curious person, and has made films on a wide range of subjects: the fate of Lenin statues in Eastern Europe, evangelical entertainers in the Bible Belt, modern-day hillbilly musicians in the Ozark Mountains, the mysteries of amnesia, undetonated World War II bombs in Germany, a visionary tunnel engineer trying to connect the USA and Russia via the world’s longest train tunnel beneath the Bering Strait, and a loving portrait of the Holocaust survivor and presidential tailor Martin Greenfield.
What all of his films have in common is a passion for intelligent and entertaining storytelling with a heart and a deep love of humanity.
Partner
The film is presented in collaboration with the Seventh Art Releasing and the LA Jewish Film Fest.
Remembering The Exiles
Villa Aurora
Musical Program
Hugo Kauder String Quartet no. 2 in G Major (1924)
I.Rühig fließend
II. Rasch und flüchtig
III. Sehr gemächlig - Lebhaft
Adriel Sloss, Michael Oliveira Violins
Grace van der Sloot, Viola
Jiayi Lu, Cello
Erich Zeisl Sonata for Violin and Piano ‘Brandeis’ (1949)
I-Grave-Allegretto
Adam Millstein, Violin
Dominic Cheli, Piano
Ernst Toch
3 Piano Pieces op. 32 (1924)
I-Ruhig und durchwegs sehr zart
Kleinstadtbilder (Echoes from a Small Town) op.49 (1929)
XII Uber den Marktplatz
3 Burlesken op. 31 (1921)
No. 3 ‘The Juggler’
Dominic Cheli, Piano
Ernst Krenek Triophantasie op. 63 (1929)
Andante sostenuto-Allegro agitato
Adam Millstein, Violin
Jakob Taylor, Cello
Dominic Cheli, Piano
Followed by a conversation with Barbara von Bechtelsheim and Adam Millstein, moderated by Joy Calico.