Remembering the survivors

April 12, 2010 - 12:43 PM by · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Life, Profiles, Social Justice 

The siren rings on Holocaust Remembrance Day in Jerusalem (AP)

On Holocaust Remembrance Day which is currently in full swing, the memories of the six million Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazis.

But local filmmaker David Blumenfeld’s short film ‘Remember Me’ places the spotlight on the survivors who made their way to Israel.

According to a recent study by the Myers JDC Brookdale Institute, about half of the estimated 233,000 Holocaust survivors in Israel lack money for home. ‘Remember Me’ focuses on three survivors who open up about their daily struggles living in poverty, and how they were eventually helped by a non-profit organization called House to House.

The organization, founded in 1999 by Ohio immigrant Darla Oz, offers aid to some of Israel’s neediest citizens. But after reading a 2007 story in ‘The Jerusalem Post’ about the economic hardships faced by 86-year-old survivor Leopold Rozen, she established Project Dignity in order to provide assistance to survivors and improve the their substandard living conditions.

Blumenfeld, a native of New Orleans who moved to Israel in 2000. became friends with Oz, and when she asked him to produce a documentary on the subject, he jumped at the chance.

Interviewing dozens of survivors for the documentary, Blumenfeld chose to focus on the lives of three – Rozen, Ronnie Markovich and Tova Farkash, who talk about their personal experiences during the war, their arrival to the Jewish Homeland, and their daily struggles living in poverty.

“When I went out and saw some of the living conditions and how they’re suffering, and then how they’ve been transformed by House to House, it really inspired me to put my heart and soul into the film,” Blumenfeld told me.

“The three survivors came from totally different places with different stories of survival. For each of them, there’s a pre-war life, their incredible stories of survival, and then their coming to Israel. What I did was try to combine the three stories into one Holocaust story,” he said.

Blumenfeld, who co-produced the successful 2008 documentary Circumcise Me: The Comedy of Yisrael Campbell, and whose photographic work has appeared in Newsweek, TIME, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine, has his own connection to the Holocaust – his grandfather’s mother and brother were both killed in Treblinka.

“I’ve been working on a film project for about five years about the town in Poland that my grandfather came from. So, I feel more connected to the Holocaust now than I ever was,” he said.

While Holocaust Remembrance Day only lasts for 24 hours, a screening of Remember Me to benefit House to House will take place on Wednesday night (April 14) at the Kehilat Yedidya synagogue in Jerusalem’s Baka neighborhood in the attendance of some survivors.

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Bringing Israel into the reel world

August 4, 2008 - 6:46 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Movies, Pop Culture 

Rambo!Loads of international movies have been shot in Israel over the years, but most of them fall into one of three categories: one, necessary location shoots due to site-specific content (Schindler’s List, Exodus, The Order); two, Israeli producers like schlock-meister Menachem Golan were involved (The Ambassador, Delta Force); or three, vaguely Middle Eastern terrain with West-friendly infrastructure was helpful (Not Without my Daughter, Rambo III).

A recent item on Ynet even itemizes some of the influxes to Israel’s financial system that these shoots have meant:

Movies that have already been filmed in Israel include Rambo III, which was filmed here in 1986 and raked in NIS 14 million ($4 million) for the Israeli economy, The Assignment with Ben Kingsley and Donald Sutherland which contributed $3.5 million to the Israeli market and Iron Eagle, filmed in 1991, which brought in $6 million.

The great Internet Movie Database lists 916 productions as having taken place here – 164 of which were shot on location in Jerusalem alone [http://www.imdb.com/List?endings=on&&locations=Jerusalem,%20Israel&&heading=18], although many of those listed are made-for-TV and/or for Israeli audiences only, so the stats should be taken with a grain of salt.

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Matthew Kalman, whose award-winning stand up comedy-themed documentary Circumcise Me was recently shot in Jerusalem, says that the city makes for a desirable movie production location,

…because people here are so used to having cameras and television crews around them at all times. It was almost like having a professional cast of extras to work with.

With Hollywood’s restricting union laws and arguably stifling status as a production incubation hotbed, more and more filmmakers are enjoying attractive terms offered to shoot overseas. The result is that English-speaking lands like the UK and Canada have become attractive destinations for movie making in a trend called “runaway production.”

And the Knesset believes that Israel is poised to get in on the runaway production action. This Thursday, heeding advice from the Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, the legislative body is expected to pass a bill offering significant and competitive kickbacks to productions willing to shoot here:

The bill includes clauses such as a 20% decrease in the cost of movie productions whose expenditures are NIS 8 million (roughly $2.3 million) or more; a 15% decrease in the production cost for movies that were co-produced and where foreigners spent NIS 4 million (about $1.15 million) or more in Israel and value-added tax benefits for production services given to foreigners for producing movies in Israel.

With many West-friendly, more-or-less-English-language-ready nations (Hungary, South Africa) jumping into the runaway production game, it’s unclear what kind of impact this law might have. But it does show that our legislators are willing to keep up with the times and explore economic opportunities in keeping with the latest global entertainment business trends.

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