our latest newsletter

february, 2016
HARTLEY FILM FOUNDATION SUPPORTS
COMPELLING DOCUMENTARIES THAT ILLUMINATE THE IMPACT
OF RELIGIONS AND SPIRITUALITY ON TODAY’S WORLD.
LOYALTY BY ANOTHER NAME
Loyalty By Another Name is a story about Muslims who are reshaping our
image of the patriotic American soldier. Director/producer David Washburn will
profile a number of individuals across the country who represent the variety
of experiences shared by American Muslims in the Armed Forces. He will
also contrast the pervasive fear about Muslims joining ISIS or Al Qaeda or
Al-Shabaab with the characters of thousands of Muslims who have voluntarily
stood up to protect American interests, and also take a critical look at how
the military is handling integration of Muslims within its ranks. Washburn
has interviewed more than a dozen veterans as research for his feature
documentary, including the first Muslim chaplain in the US Armed Forces, and
was invited to join the Pentagon’s annual Ramadan iftar last June. He asks:
“How do Americans, and by extension the military, remain open and inclusive to
American Muslims during ongoing wars against Muslim adversaries?”
Director/producer
David Washburn
MAESTROS OF THE CAMPS
For more than 30 years, one man has single-handedly taken on a unique challenge: tracking down,
archiving and performing all the pieces of music written and composed in prison camps between 1933 and
1953, from the opening of the first Nazi internment camps to the closing of the last Western Allied POW
camps. Director Alexandre Valenti follows concert pianist and composer Francisco Lotoro from flea markets
in Central Europe to camp archives, attics of composers’ descendents and storage areas in museums.
The incarcerated composers sought consolation in music, whether Jews or Gypsies, political prisoners,
Dominican priests, French officers imprisoned by the Germans, Wehrmacht soldiers, Italian armed forces
captured by the Allies
or Americans and
British troops captured
by the Japanese. The
imprisoned composers
left music of all styles
and genres: songs and
masses, cabarets, jazz,
sonatas and tangos.
Lotoro has unearthed
Director Alexandre
more than 5,000
Valenti
scores of holy, secular,
symphonic, choral, blues and folk music. Valenti
and his team are planning a series of concerts
internationally. The director writes: “The quest to
track down, archive and perform these musical
compositions is a journey through time to overcome
oblivion, and to preserve the memories of these
women and men ... who turned music into an act of
resistance.”
THE RESCUER
Right photos: Director Hark Joon Lee (t) and Producer Won Jung Bae (b)
In 2013, the U.S. Congress passed the North Korean Child Welfare Act to facilitate the adoption of North
Korean orphans by Americans. The Asian Underground Railroad for North Korean refugees, which is
operated mostly by Christians, is a circuitous 5,000-kilometer route that runs from North Korea to China,
Laos and Thailand. China and Laos do not recognize North Korean defectors as refugees, which puts them
at risk of deportation or imprisonment. South Korean pastor Reverend Sung-eun Kim, an evangelist, has
struggled to rescue North Korean orphans. In The Rescuer, he arranges smugglers and human traffickers
to help children cross the border two or three at a time, a good cause at first glance, but also a good
business. But are these children really orphans? Critics call operations like Rev. Kim’s not refugee relief
but refugee creation, in order to claim easy money. Supporters view him as heroic. This for the filmmaking
team of director Hark Joon Lee and producer Won Jung Bae begs the question: “How far into darkness can
you go before you can’t see the light of your actions?” Hark Joon Lee followed Reverend Kim as he made
five attempts this past fall to rescue North Korean children.
BY A THREAD
By A Thread tells the story of a Palestinian child from Gaza, Muhammad (Muhi) El Farrah, son of a
Hamas activist wanted in Israel, who was transferred as a baby to Israel for treatment of a life-threatening
incurable genetic condition. In order to save his life, Israeli doctors had to amputate Muhi’s four limbs. He
Above: Abu Naim (l),
Muhi El Farrah (c),
Buma Inbar (r)
Left: Co-directors
Tamir Elterman
(L) and Rina
Castelnuovo (C),
Producer Hilla
Medalia (R)
was accompanied only by his grandfather, Abu Naim. Months turned into years and Muhi, now six, has
lived his entire life in an Israeli medical facility, confined to its premises for security reasons. Muhi is a child
caught between two homes and two peoples. Abu Naim, the Gaza family patriarch, is a deeply religious
man who sees it as his Islamic duty to stay by his grandson. Buma Inbar is an Israeli veteran paratrooper
who lost his soldier son at war, and in his bereavement Inbar finds purpose in comforting Muhi. Israeli
physicians believe that returning Muhi to Gaza would be a death sentence, since hospitals there are on
the brink of collapse. But by the end of this summer, the Israeli hospital will not be able to keep Muhi as
a patient. By A Thread, as a microcosm of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, will encourage audiences to
examine beliefs that deny the humanity of the adversary.
LOVE & STUFF
director Judith helfand with
daughter Theo
This first-person documentary will explore mother-daughter
love from both sides of the camera as the director Judith
Helfand embraces a series of spiritual life-cycle challenges.
She and her family honor all Jewish traditions, and the
traditions will frame this story. Helfand helps her mother to die
at home, then has to deal with parting with her mother’s “stuff.”
Seven months later, three months shy of turning 50, and 25
years after her DES cancer diagnosis and radical hysterectomy,
Helfand has to learn how to become a new (older) mother
to an adopted newborn daughter. The director states that
the narrative is complicated because she, as a DES cancer
survivor, had a deep-seated fear of recurrence that pushed her
at a frenzied pace for years to produce films and help build the
organizations Working Films and Chicken and Egg Pictures.
Helfand thought that art would be her legacy. That was until
her adopted daughter Theo’s dramatic and very sudden arrival
became the stark reminder that she had to “learn how to live as
if I am going to live.”
Co-directors
Ariel Nasr (t) and
Sergeo Kirby (B)
FORBIDDEN REEL
A little known fact in a country famous for war is the existence of a vital film legacy that has existed since
the 1950s in Afghanistan. Afghan Film, the country’s public film production company was, in the years
preceding the Soviet invasion, a hub of central Asian film production. Film production continued throughout
the Soviet occupation at great risk and later, when the Taliban showed up, film archivists spent one night
building false walls to hide film negatives. (They left Bollywood prints out for the Taliban to burn). The
archived films reveal a place of culture, politics, a sophisticated middle class and a keen sense of humor,
but also a country pulled between the forces of modernity and tradition. The footage shines a light on the
changing milieu Muslims have faced over the past 60 years, and Forbidden Reel focuses on the Muslim
citizenry that the Taliban does not want you to see. Co-directors Sergeo Kirby and Ariel Nasr report that
the National Film Board supports the film and, with the National Film Board’s expertise in archives and
digitizing film, Kirby and Nasr are investigating the possibility of digitization becoming a central focus of this
film project.
SHAYKHA
The great strides that
women are making
in the vastly diverse
Islamic world are the
focus of co-directors
Kelly Thomson’s
and Zachary Stuart’s
documentary Shaykha.
They follow three female
Sufi leaders who seek
social transformation
in diverse areas of the
globe ranging from a
mosque in New York
Oumou Malick (c)
to rural Senegal to
Istanbul. Each woman has devoted followers ranging from a
few hundred to thousands. Shaykha Oumou Malick, a business
woman in Senegal, is one of the first women in that country to
guide a mixed-gender congregation. Fariha Friedrich is the first
Western woman in her Turkish lineage to be crowned Shaykha.
And Cemalnur Sargut of Istanbul is a Shaykha to thousands in
many countries. She has a radio show and weekly television
broadcast and is known as “Turkey’s Oprah.”
Co-directors Kelly Thomson (L)
and Zachary Stuart (R)
Director Davina
Pardo
116 CAMERAS
As the Holocaust
survivor population
ages, we are nearing
the day when in-person
testimony will no longer
be possible. Faced
with this reality, the
Shoah Foundation has
created an ambitious
new project: to turn
survivors into 3D digital
projections that will
interact with generations
to come. Davina Pardo’s
documentary 116
Cameras follows
Holocaust survivor Eva Schloss as she goes through this process. The film will be an intimate portrait that
explores the nature of memory, testimony and the future of storytelling. THE HEAVEN IN
MY HEAD
Director Musa
Syeed
As with any violent conflict, the impact of
Kashmir’s decadeslong struggle is often
measured by its death
toll. Director Musa
Syeed recognizes that it is harder to assess the psychological impact of the conflict. He describes one
Kashmiri male who, as a result of years of invasive checkpoints, is unable to enter any building, even his
own home, without first showing his identify card. The Heaven in My Head will introduce viewers to the lives
of Kashmiris healing and being healed through faith. Many are turning to faith healers, or pirs, for centuries
the center of communal life in Kashmir. Physicians and NGOs are now actively working with these pirs to
create mental health treatments, lead Kashmiris to question cultural attitudes toward mental illness, and
rediscover what Islam actually prescribes. Syeed plans to travel to Kashmir this summer to finalize the
choice of characters and storylines.
Director Paula
Eiselt. right: Photo
by Bryan Lynch
93 QUEEN
93 Queen follows Rachel
“Ruchie” Freier, a lawyer,
mother of six, and member
of the Hasidic community,
on her quest to deliver
dignified emergency
medical services to the
Hasidic women of her
Brooklyn neighborhood.
Director Paula Eiselt will
capture Ruchie and her
team as they struggle
through the certification process and head out on their first emergency call, all against the wishes of the
traditional patriarchy. Though the Brooklyn neighborhood is home to the largest volunteer ambulance corps
in the world (Hatzolah), that organization has refused since its inception to accept women in its ranks. As
the birthrate in Hasidic neighborhoods continues to rise, Hatzolah members’ presence at emergency births
is exceedingly common and, to Ruchie and her team and many of the women they wish to serve, an affront
to Hasidic standards of modesty, which are sacrosanct in orthodox Jewish culture. This group of Hasidic
women will shake things up as they band together to establish the first all-female EMS corps in their
Hasidic community.
AMERICAN SAINT
American Saint explores
the case to make bishop
and media star Fulton
Sheen a saint, and
how a clash between
two prominent religious
leaders has halted the
process in its tracks. The
film will shed light on the
Director Allison
process of sainthood, a
Berg
fascinating practice in the
Left: Bishop Fulton
Catholic religion, and the
Sheen
significance that sainthood
continues to play. Director
Allison Berg’s focus is a bishop who was a household
name for more than three decades, a charismatic
Catholic priest, philosopher, teacher, radio personality,
Emmy Award-winning television star and the author of
more than 60 books.
10 QUESTIONS YOU CAN’T ASK
ABOUT ISRAEL AND PALESTINE
Director Jed Rothstein’s documentary describes the ten questions as
“uncomfortable but vital.” He shot material covering pro-Palestinian and proIsraeli lobbying in the nation’s capital, and also followed the story of a major
American university’s battle over whether to join or reject the growing Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions movement. The movement is roiling campuses
nationwide. Rothstein says his team is “tackling questions that we all want to
ask, or would be well-served to talk about, but feel we can’t without causing
offense. Among them: Does being a good Jew mean upholding the humanistic
values of Judaism, or defending the Jewish homeland? And has any Arab state
been able to sustain a democracy that remotely comports with our ideals?”
Director Jed
Rothstein
AMERICAN BLEND
American Blend will follow a multicultural group of
African-American, Asian, Hispanic and Caucasian
musicians who are on a mission. They travel the
world as cultural ambassadors for the U.S. State
Department, building bridges in far-flung and
sometimes dangerous regions where there is little
exposure to American culture and vice versa.
Their band’s name is Blended 328. The number
is in reference to Galatians 3:28, which proclaims
that everyone is equal in God’s eyes. Last year,
in Pakistan’s infamous border region, as an Imam
announced a fatwah against them, the musicians
took to the stage as the first American musicians to
perform there. American Blend observes the band
members as they begin to see beyond their selfimages as models and mentors and to recognize
the stereotypes and cultural misunderstandings they
themselves harbor.
Director Bob Richman (l), Producers
Kelly Sheehan (c) and Kim Connell (r)
ZEUF + 20
top: Zeuf with Charlotte
far right: Director Charlotte
Lagarde
Zeuf, a top athlete and
breast cancer survivor,
was the subject of
director Charlotte
Lagarde’s first
documentary. In 2013,
when Zeuf learned
that her cancer had
metastasized to her
liver and brain, she invited Lagarde to return to California to
film her. Zeuf was 34 years of age and a well known cardiac
ICU nurse who had used surfing and paddling to recover from
her initial bout with cancer. She became the first woman to
paddle 35 miles across Monterey Bay. When Lagarde could not
bring herself to film, Zeuf turned the camera on Lagarde. The
director realized that Zeuf was at peace with dying and was
offering Lagarde an opportunity to embrace the complexity of
the experience. After Zeuf passed away, Lagarde’s film turned
inward. Zeuf + 20 will be a film about friendship and loss, and
about being the one left behind to explore what happens next.
The director asks: “How does one get used to the constant
presence of absence?”
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: POLAND AND
THE RECOVERY OF ITS JEWISH PAST
Director Menachem Daum’s documentary will tell the story of a number of
non-Jewish Polish individuals who responded to the Polish communist regime’s
open embrace of anti-Semitism in 1968 by becoming “anti-anti-Semites.”
These individuals challenged the ethno-nationalist prejudice that for nearly a
director Menachem
century had dominated much of Polish political and social life. Daum says that
Daum
the conventional wisdom that Polish anti-Semitism is endemic and innate is in
the process of being overturned by Poles themselves. He will bring to life the
changes in Poland’s relationship with the memory of its Jews through personal stories from pioneers in this
transformation. These “dissidents, ranging from staid academics to punk rockers, cemetery restorers to
museum directors, theater directors to clergy, have little patience for the line that urged Poles to view Jews
as ‘the enemy within,’” Daum says. He recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant
for the film.
left: Photo by Einer Magnus Vest-Lillesoe. Right: Co-directors Lars Brask
Frederiksen and Cecilia Valsted. Photo by Thomas Cato
DANCING ON TWO FEET
A Danish film team recently discovered that in Freetown, Sierra Leone, both Christian and Muslim people
of faith live peacefully together in daily life. Interfaith marriages are common. Co-directors Cecilia Valsted
and Lars Brask Frederiksen are filming Alimamy Kargbo, leader of the Interreligious Council, which was
established after an 11-year civil war in Sierra Leone in the 90s. Council leader Kargbo’s goal is to make
acceptance of different religious beliefs Sierra Leone’s “main export, a richer and more worthwhile resource
to pursue and trade than the past currency of diamond mining and slavery.”
THE KOSHER BEACH
A half-hour drive separates the ultra-Orthodox
suburb of Bnei Brak from secular Tel Aviv. Yet
nestled on Tel-Aviv’s beachfront, between and
behind wooden barricades, is a kosher beach
that lies side-by-side with hotels, marinas and
restaurants. It is a thrice-weekly destination for many
Producer Hilla Medalia (L) and Director
of Bnei Brak’s inhabitants. The hermetically sealed
Karin Kainer (R)
kosher beach is inhabited by women and men who
swim and sunbathe on separate and designated days. While orthodox rabbis post prohibitions against
the immorality of the beach for women, the excursions are deemed sacrosanct by those who draw their
strength from the sea and a break from their daily lives.
right photo: Producers Adam Krell (l) and Gerald Krell (r)
YOUR HEALTH: A SACRED MATTER
Producers Gerald and Adam Krell have completed nationwide principal photography on their two-hour
documentary for public television titled Your Health: A Sacred Matter. They are exploring the roles that
religion and health have played historically in Western medicine, and the connections between religion,
spirituality and health that are increasingly being made in contemporary society. The producers are also
examining the roles of religion and spirituality in healers’ approaches to healing, how modern biomedical
investigations into mind/body connections are challenging conventional views about religion and spirituality
in the West, and how modern healers respond to a multicultural clientele.
ETZ HAYYIM: THE ART OF REPAIR
An ancient synagogue in Crete has been reconstructed into a renewed and
inclusive Jewish community following the devastation of World War II. 2,300
years of Jewish life on Crete were almost entirely obliterated during the war.
Co-directors Ken Ross and Sandra Barty traveled to Crete to film one man’s
mission to reconstruct the synagogue. Nikos Stavroulakis, a director of the
Jewish Museums of Athens, Salonika and Rhodes, has artfully replaced every
bench and cushion and the embroidered curtains surrounding the Torah scrolls.
Observant and non-observant Jews, Christians, Muslims and agnostics all gather
at the synagogue to discuss shared issues. Characters in the film include, among
others, an elderly German Catholic woman, an Israeli resident of the town, and a
local Muslim leader who teaches Arabic in the synagogue courtyard. More than
25,000 tourists visit the Etz Hayyim synagogue each year.
Co-directors Ken Ross (t) and Sandra Barty (B)
COLLEGE BEHIND BARS RECEIVES
FIRST ELDA & IRVING HARTLEY AWARD
Lynn novick (t) and
sarah botstein (B)
At a Good Pitch event in New York City last fall, a trailer for the documentary College Behind Bars: The
Bard Prison Initiative electrified the audience. Several audience members spoke about “redemption”
after seeing the transformational power of a liberal arts education on the filmed prisoners. The film in
development tells the untold story of incarcerated men and women imprisoned in New York who are
immersed in a rigorous college degree program. A graduate of the program who had recently been
released from prison told Good Pitch attendees that while it was difficult finding employment after prison,
he knew he would be hired because he now recognized his capabilities. The final paper he wrote for The
Bard Prison Initiative was 100 + pages. Written in German. Truly inspirational.
HARTLEY-SUPPORTED DOCS making NEWS
THE RETURN
There are some Polish youth living in
a country that was once the epicenter
of the Jewish world who are just now
discovering their Jewish identifies.
The Return brings to life the stories of
four young Jewish women who were
Director Adam
raised Catholic, only to find in their
Zucker
teens from relatives who lived through
the Holocaust that they were Jewish. The film was released
one year ago and the film continues to be screened across
the United States and abroad. In September, The Return was
the Opening Night film for the Nordic Anthropological Film
Association’s Conference held in the New Museum of the
History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. Later in the fall, director
Adam Zucker took the film back to Europe for a third tour,
screening in Prague, Warsaw, Bialystok and Osweicim. An
additional European swing through Hungary, Germany and
the UK is scheduled for spring of this year. In December, The
Return had its Israeli premiere, and it has been screened in
Australia, Argentina and Uruguay.
Director Shimon
Dotan
THE SETTLERS
From a global perspective,
much of the chronic
Middle East conflict
revolves around the
Israeli settlements in the
West Bank. The settlers
are associated with xenophobia and religious zealotry, but little appears to be actually known about the
personal beliefs and stories of the settlers themselves. Director Shimon Dotan has explored the various
forces that shape the lives of the settlers both externally and internally. He embedded himself in their
midst to deliver a film from “within.” Dotan writes that “...it was an exercise in listening.” Dotan emphasized
through his film the role of the Israeli government over time in the growth of the settlement movement. The
Settlers premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival in January.
WALKING THE TIGHTROPE: RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN TODAY’S AMERICA
Director Cal
Skaggs
What choice do you make if your deeply held moral or religious beliefs
conflict with the Law of the Land? Can you have true religious freedom if
the government says “yes” and your faith says “no?” Or vice versa? Is the
distinctively American wall separating church and state crumbling in our time?
Walking the Tightrope: Religious Freedom in Today’s America looks at how
“religious freedom” is being redefined in the 21st century. A movement to
revise our conception of religious freedom arose out of the passage of the
1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act. It gained critical momentum with the
Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision in June of 2014 and the Obergefell
same-sex marriage decision in June of 2015. Today some Americans are
using “religious freedom” to justify discrimination against women, curtail the
legal rights of LGBT citizens, and deny essential medical care to children. Meanwhile, some churches
and synagogues are having to fight for their religious freedom in order to continue their ministries in an
increasingly secularized society. Director Cal Skaggs is traveling across the country to highlight how
religious freedom is being redefined in Texas, New York, Kentucky and Idaho.
Director Lana
Wilson
LAST CALL
Last Call is a film that goes inside the life of an extraordinary Buddhist priest combating the suicide
epidemic in Japan. He uses counseling, retreats and parties to help the men and women who come to
him discover the will to live. The film is in post-production. Director Lana Wilson, who recently won a “Best
Documentary” Emmy for her previous film, After Tiller, is thrilled to be working with acclaimed editor David
Teague on Last Call. Teague’s most recent film, Life, Animated, just premiered at the 2016 Sundance
Film Festival, where it received the U.S. Directing Prize. The Last Call team hopes that the film will be
completed by the end of 2016.
Co-directors Geeta Patel (L) and Ravi Patel (R)
MEET THE PATELS
Media accolades for Meet the Patels continue as the film reaches audiences across the country. Codirectors Geeta and Ravi Patel say they have hit the one million mark at the box office. They recently
were tasked with scripting and co-directing a Meet the Patels remake with Fox Searchlight. The romantic
comedy brings to light the societal pressures of marriage in Ravi’s and Geeta’s first-generational Indian
American family. Marriage between cultures can create conflict, especially in families with strong cultural
and religious roots. And in Ravi’s and Geeta’s world, custom dictates that a Patel marries a Patel, even in
America. Geeta films Ravi as he embarks on a journey to better understand what he wants and how to find
love in this delightful, insightful documentary.
Director Sophie Dia Pegrum
TALKING TO THE AIR
Mustang is a remote and little known kingdom bordering Tibet, located in a high plateau valley in the Nepali
Himalaya. The peoples of Upper Mustang live as their medieval ancestors did and the mountain valley was
closed to outsiders until recently. In this harsh and inaccessible environment, ancient Buddhist sects have
remained unadulterated since the 14th century. Talking to the Air is a window into that feudal life and into
Buddhist dependence on and worship of the horse, considered to be central to spiritual welfare, education
and tradition. Director Sophie Dia Pegrum’s documentary had its Canadian premiere in November, and the
film has also screened in New York, Bulgaria, Turkey and Qatar. It won a Jury Award in Belgrade for Best
Visual Presentation of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Left: Lacey and her
mother
Above: Director
Lacey Schwartz
LITTLE WHITE LIE
The narrative of Little White Lie follows director Lacey Schwartz’s upbringing in a white, Jewish family and
her discovery, at the age of 18, that her biological father is African-American. Lacey is a Harvard-educated
lawyer who believed throughout her childhood that her “Jewishness” accounted for her “otherness.” After
release of the film, Schwartz and her team developed an interactive card game called the Truth Circle
Game as a way to build and create conversations around the film and the issues it raises in regard to
complex racial identities, family dynamics, and personal discovery. Check it out at truthcirclegame.com.
THEY WILL HAVE TO KILL US FIRST:
MALIAN MUSIC IN EXILE
The U.S. release of They Will Have to Kill Us
First by BBC Worldwide North America is around
the corner. Initial release is scheduled for Music
Freedom Day on March 3rd, and the film will open
at the Village East Cinema in Manhattan on March
Producer Sarah Mosses (L) and
4th. The story opens two years after the Movement
Director Johanna Schwartz (R)
for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa decreed that
the broadcasting of music on radios in Northern Mali was illegal. The prevalent religion in Northern Mali is
Sufi Islam, and music is at the heart of Sufi culture and communication. Director Johanna Schwartz filmed
courageous Malian musicians who continued to perform and defy insurgents’ imposed interpretation of
religious law. The documentary will launch in Los Angeles and other cities on April 1st.
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