I Will Bear Witness
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Images
"I want to bear witness, precise witness, until the very end.” -Victor Klemperer
Topics
Human Development: Education
Human Rights: Religion
Information & Media: Freedom of Expression
Politics: Civil Society, Codes of Conduct, Ethics & Value Systems
Budget
Raised to date: $ 115,250.00
Estimate to complete: $ 65,000.00
Total Estimated Budget: $ 0.00
The budget numbers above are accurate as of 05/07/2008
Status
Production
Media Type
Other
Project End Use
Other
Key Personnel
Marion Lipschutz
Producer/Direcor/Writer
Formed in 1991 as a partnership of Marion Lipschutz and Rose
Rosenblatt, Incite Pictures, and Cine Qua Non, a 501(c)(3), produces
high-profile television documentaries and educational materials on subjects of
social and cultural significance. Their last film, The Education of Shelby
Knox, won Best Cinematography at the Sundance Film Festival, the Women in
Leadership Award at Full Frame, as well as a dozen other top prizes. It
launched the 2005 PBS Point of View season, a series that also broadcast Live
Free or Die as a fall election special, a documentary that told the story of a
doctor banned from teaching in his children’s schools because he provides
abortions. Both films were featured in the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.
Other nationally airing work includes Fatherhood USA, a series on contemporary
fatherhood; The Abortion Pill; and for a change of pace, The Trenchcoat Gang, a
Court TV special about the most successful bank robbers in U.S. history.
Rose Rosenblatt
Producer
When George Bartenieff approached the producers, Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt, they felt a deep affinity for this project. Rose’s parents and older sister escaped from Poland and survived a Siberian Labor Camp, and Rose was born in Bad Ischel, in a re-settlement camp. The rest of her family did not survive.
Marion’s relationship to the subject is similar to George’s. Growing up in a thoroughly secular household, her connection to Germany and Judaism was ambiguous. Born into a mixed marriage, her mother lived in Germany until she was 13, then escaped, first to France, then Spain and finally to the U.S.
Formed in 1991 as a partnership of Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt, Incite Pictures, and Cine Qua Non, a 501(c)(3), produces high-profile television documentaries and educational materials on subjects of social and cultural significance.
George Bartenieff
Performer
Co-founder of New York’s Theater for the New City, George has been a star of Off-Broadway theater since the early sixties and recipient of three Village Voice OBIE Awards, a Drama Desk Award, and a Philly. George was born to a Protestant mother and a Jewish father who fled Germany to the U.S. in the 1930s, leaving George and his brother in the care of an aunt who sheltered them for three years until their parents could send for them. There is the simple, direct experience of hearing Klemperer’s words brought to life, embodied by an actor who seems to be channeling his subject. Karen Malpede, the playwright, said that when she read the diaries, she knew that George was born to play Klemperer. Playing Klemperer, George has toured throughout the U.S. and Europe. On film, his acting tour de force will captivate audiences, drawing them into the themes and ideas of The Diaries.
Outreach/Engagement Plan(s)
CQN will create an educational DVD and website, and lay the groundwork for classroom distribution. The educational DVD will contain longer excerpts from the play, a performance that compressed the 800 page diaries into three hours. Post broadcast, we anticipate a vigorous educational presence. There is a statewide movement to mandate that the Holocaust be taught, often in conjunction with education about genocide and we have found great interest on the part of educators, eager for new ways to teach this material. A second front in the educational plan is outreach to the groups and organizations concerned with peace and social justice. In addition, we have begun outreach to temples, museums and resource centers. Advisors: The project is being developed with the advice of various scholars and experts, including Dr. Frederick Schweitzer at the Manhattan College Holocaust Resource Center; Mark Weitzman at the Simon Wiesenthal Center Task Force Against Hate; Dr. Annette Insdorf, the director of Undergraduate Film Studies at Columbia University and author of Indelible Shadows: Film and the Holocaust; Dr. Viktoria Hertling, a filmmaker and director of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Peace Studies at the University of Nevada at Reno; Bernard Reuter, Professor of German, Center of Holocaust and Genocide Education at St. Cloud State University; and Michele Watson, a high school history teacher at the Dresden International School.
Funders
| Name | Amount | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Harburg Foundation | $ 250.00 | 11/15/2007 | |
| Spingold Foundation | $ 25,000.00 | 06/01/2007 | |
| US Embassy for Cultural Affairs | $ 5,000.00 | 08/23/2003 | |
| In Kind and Individual Donors |
Location(s)
347 W. 36th Street, Suite 901
New York, NY, 10018
See Google Maps
Short Synopsis
George Bartenieff’s Obie Award winning dramatization of The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, raising awareness of the relatively unknown masterpiece of World War II literature.
Description/Treatment
I Will Bear Witness is a half hour documentary following George Bartenieff’s Obie Award winning dramatization of The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, a masterpiece of World War II literature that remains relatively unknown in the U.S. The program celebrates the diaries and emphasizes the underlying message that tyranny arrives slowly, announced in the details of daily life, and that ordinary men and women are capable of the most basic – and the heroic – acts of resistance. I Will Bear Witness Contains several important dimensions. There is the discovery of an overlooked work, the diaries, and their historical record of the relatively unknown experience of Jews, often in mixed marriages throughout the war in Germany. There is the simple, direct experience of hearing Klemperer’s words brought to life, embodied by an actor who seems to be channeling his subject. In addition, George’s own compelling story is told in the film. He was born to a Protestant mother and a Jewish father who fled Germany to the U.S. in the 1930s, leaving George and his brother in the care of an aunt who sheltered them for three years until their parents could send for them. Finally, The work speaks to trends in historiography, which have moved through distinct phases. First, relative silence, then highly charged emotional engagement, and more recently, attention to the lives of ordinary Germans, as well as to complex, less predictable, narratives. “Marion Lipschutz and Rose Rosenblatt’s work has the essential qualities of being deeply human and personal. I am very confident that they will produce a film that will have a broad appeal...their films encourage dialogue and engagement in the issues.” - Simon Kilmurry, Head of PBS’s P.O.V. Series.