When Dori Laub began recording the stories of other survivors in the late 1970s, he was preserving memory. But he was also pioneering a radical act of listening. He recognized the power of listening to life stories as a way of helping survivors cope with trauma. His work led to the creation of the world’s first video testimony archive and shaped a unique therapeutic approach centered on presence, empathy, and witness.
The documentary follows the final four years of Laub’s life (2015-2018), interweaving powerful archival testimonies with intimate glimpses into his own story: a childhood in Romanian camps, a love affair with the daughter of a former Nazi officer, and the moment his own children hear his testimony for the first time. His legacy echoes today in the work of Edut 710, a project inspired by Laub’s methods to document the voices of survivors of the October 7 Hamas massacre.