Intimate Stranger

Who was Joseph Cassuto, the filmmaker’s grandfather? A Jew born in Palestine, he settled in Egypt in the thirties and emigrated to the United States during the Second World War. He spent most of his life in Japan, leaving his family behind eleven months out of twelve. “His heart wasn’t in America, it was in Japan”, said one of his sons. “Apart from his own family, I’ve never met anyone who did not love him”, said another. This man who died in 1974 is still like a riddle to his family. Seventeen years after his grandfather’s death, Alan Berliner tries to understand his character through letters, diaries, photographs, films, and also through his family’s memories. Did Joseph Cassuto have a unique destiny, or was he an ordinary man?