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Seventh Art Releasing is wishing everyone a Happy Earth Day 2011, a day for people to focus on and to appreciate the Earth's natural environment.
At Seventh Art Releasing we have multiple films that deal with environmental concerns and promote environmental protection and sustainability. Take part this Earth Day by checking out some of our amazing environment and nature films!
OWNING THE WEATHER goes deep inside the story of weather modification, including geoengineering schemes to fight global warming. We've always wanted to control the weather. Now we may have to.
SHIFTING GEARS takes a light-hearted look at one of the most serious challenges facing human kind: How can we get around without the oil from underground? We had to know it wouldn’t last forever. Are there answers? Some people believe we have always had them. From the history of the diesel engine, to the emerging trend of collecting cooking oil waste to use as fuel, all the way to home-made bio-diesel manufacturing. Take this journey to meet the people making a difference and learn how you can join in.
At the epicenter of the long-running civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo lies Virunga National Park, home to more than 200 of the only 720 mountain gorillas remaining in the world. RETURN TO VIRUNGA follows a small but dedicated force of forest rangers risk their lives to save one of the world's greatest and most vulnerable species. What does the future hold for Congo's mountain gorillas? Can these great apes still be saved?
THE LEFTOVERS is a dumpster diving adventure with long term devotes Paul and Mykel as your tour guides on their waste fuelled journey down the east coast of Australia. With no money, no food, driving only on vegetable fuel they plan to drive 2000 km in 7 days living on nothing but societies waste.
Click here for more information and details on how you can help out this Earth Day!
By Tom Tugend
If "My Brother's Keeper" chronicles one of the apogees in Jewish history, "The Fuehrer Gives the Jews a City" surely represents one of its nadirs.
The 23 minutes of raw, unedited footage is all that has been found of a Nazi propaganda project to "prove"Â that the "model" Theresienstadt camp was a veritable paradise for its Jewish inmates.
Shot in early 1944, when the horrors of Hitler's Final Solution finally trickled out to the West, the film was part of an effort to hoodwink a visiting International Red Cross delegation that all was productive work and wholesome recreation in Theresienstadt, and by extension in other concentration camps.
There contented workers shoed horses, made pottery and designed handbags, in after hours well-dressed man and women attended concerts and lectures, and kids played soccer or gorged themselves on sandwiches.
All this to the incongruous background music from Offenbach's "Gaite Parisienne" or a jazzy "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen."Â
The director of what must be one of the oddest scraps of cinematic history was a mountainous Jewish inmate, Kurt Gerron, whose strange story of pride and self-deception is documented in a companion film, "Kurt Gerron's Karussel (Carousel)."
Gerron, a native Berliner born Kurt Gerson, was a towering figure, both in girth and as a leading impresario in the swinging Berlin cabaret scene of the 1920s.
He was also a successful actor, playing the nightclub owner in "The Blue Angel" opposite Marlene Dietrich, and was featured in the world premiere cast of "The Three Penny Opera."
Though banned from the German stage in 1933, Gerron persisted in the self-delusion that his talent and charm would triumph in the end.
When Peter Lorre and other German expatriates in Hollywood arranged for Gerron to join them and even pay the travel expenses for the impresario and his family, Gerron refused on the grounds that the proffered ship accommodations weren't first class.
He did establish a temporary second career in France and Holland, but the Nazis caught up with him and deported him to Theresienstadt.
When "The Fuehrer Gives a City" project came along, Gerron saw a chance to burnish his career and signed on as director. He also swallowed the "word of honor" of the German camp commandant that his life would be spared after he completed the film.
Instead, Gerron was sent to Auschwitz in October 1944 and killed one day before SS chief Heinrich Himmler gave the order to shut down the gas chambers for good.
"Karussel" director Ilona Ziok combines footage of Gerron's halcyon days in Berlin with testimony of surviving Jewish camp prisoners to draw a picture of Gerron as a tragic, self-deluded figure, "big, strong man with the mind of a child,"in the words of a fellow Theresienstadt prisoner.
"Kurt Gerron's Karussel"Â is available as a DVD, but distribution of "The Fuehrer Gives a City to the Jews"Â has been sharply limited by the distributor.
A spokesman for Seventh Art Releasing said that the film fragment was available for free, but fearing misuse of the material, it could only be used for educational and scholarly purposes and had to be clearly labeled as Nazi propaganda.
Click here for more information or to order The Fuehrer Gives The Jews a City.
There is still time to book Seventh Art Releasing's newest documentary SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY for Yom HaShoah screenings!
"Impressive... Mesmerizing...A fresh angle" -RealScreen Magazine - Bloggers' Best of 2010
"Astonishing... A film that will educate and entertain"-The Huffington Post
"Eerily enchanting" -GQ Magazine
"The perfect date movie...and I'm not joking" -Documentary Film Online - Best of Full Frame Festival
*Foundation for Jewish Culture Grant Winner
*Winner - Inspiration Award Full Frame Doc Film Festival
*Winner - Ojai Festival Theme Award Ojai Film Festival
*Official Selection San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
As a teenager in Nazi Germany, Jutta is shocked to discover she is Jewish. She joins the German resistance and meets Helmuth, an injured soldier. The two become sweethearts and soon co-conspirators in the final plot to assassinate Hitler.
This would sound like a pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster were it not all true. Surviving Hitler: A Love Story is in fact a harrowing tale of war, resistance, and survival. At the center of the documentary is a love story for the ages, with riveting narration by Jutta herself, original 8mm footage (shot by Helmuth) and, miraculously, a happy ending.
Click here to book SURVIVING HITLER: A LOVE STORY
By indieWIRE
Jasmin and Assi are newlyweds, but building a life together seems impossible: She's an Israeli, he's a Palestinian. When their homelands turn their backs on them, they choose to live in exile. This tender tale of a love infiltrated by politics follows a real-life Romeo and Juliet on their odyssey from the Middle East through an inhospitable Europe. As their hopes rise and then fade with each bureaucratic hurdle, will their love survive?
Early idealism...
I was 16, attending a screening for students of "Roma Citta Aperta," by Roberto Rosselini. I could not stop crying and was deeply embarrassed. It was weird that a black and white movie portraying courage, war and injustice spoke to me. What surprised me was that none of my school mates shared my emotional response. At that moment I decided to become a medical doctor. I wanted to save the world. As it turned out, I never went to medical school but instead studied journalism and traveled to West and East Africa for years. I eventually studied documentary filmmaking at the National College of Film and Theatre in Stockholm. I love the entire process and to me, shooting is the best!
My feelings never changed about wanting to make a difference in the world. I just choose a different medium than I originally intended.
Why this subject matter?
Rage. It was the beginning of the Second Intifada in 2001. I was surrounded by people from the left and by people from my own Jewish background. The two groups totally dismissed the efforts made by anyone whose aim was to bring peace to the region. Both groups said; "Ah, that's how they are, the Arabs/Jews/Palestinians/Israelis, what can you expect from people like that?" They ridiculed every effort made towards reconciliation. That attitude prompted me to act.
I strongly felt that until then, all the wars, conflicts, hates and fear had changed nothing in the region. So many films have been made about the Wall, about the West Bank and the conflict. I wanted to do something else. My idea was to make a love story. I myself live in a mixed marriage and, although my experience was not even close to the struggles Jasmin and Osama are going through, I felt I had some kind of insight.
Working with a language barrier...
I conducted very few interviews during the shooting. I either initiated a situation or just followed what they were doing, but I always had a direction. The fact that my Hebrew is extremely poor, and that I speak no Arabic, was a challenge. I decided not to use an interpreter. Thanks to Osama and Jasmin, who were both open and generous, I managed to shoot situations where I hardly understood anything. I would get a sense that it was a good scene, just from the atmosphere, the tone of voice of the protagonists and how people looked at each other. Strangely enough that was the best footage I ever captured. Maybe because if I understood what they really said, I might have interrupted, asked questions and so disturbed the magic of reality.
Overcoming naivete...
I myself was the biggest challenge. My idea came out of the naive ambition to make a peace movie that proves "love conquers all." I was totally unprepared for how much I was going to be challenged.
The difficulties appeared when I was forced to deal with an Israel very different from the Land of Milk and Honey I grew up with. I was totally unprepared for how difficult it would be for me to understand this on an emotional level. It took me years to digest. I had to totally rebuild the narrative of my childhood and draw my own map. But nevertheless, my feelings towards this region are very strong. I really love to be there visiting friends. And of course, I have relatives in Israel, and so it has always been a very important place where I feel very much at home.
Difficult areas to film...
I am always asked if it was difficult to film in Israel and Palestine. My answer is no. People were always helpful, in both countries. What did surprise me, though, was how difficult and nearly impossible it was to shoot in Germany. The immigration authorities always said no. We wanted to shoot in a museum but they did not even bother to answer our request.
Upcoming ventures...
I've just finished writing a book about my emotional struggle during the making of "Love During Wartime" as part of a research project at the University College of Film in Stockholm. Later this spring, I will start filming a documentary about how nationalism affects relationships between family and friends in Sweden and Denmark. I've also just started doing research for a film about fundamentalism and its fallout around the world, using a very personal perspective.
Click here to read this article on indieWIRE.
Click here for more information on LOVE DURING WARTIME.
Last week the LA Times reported, a virus that causes respiratory disease in humans has been linked to the deaths of critically endangered mountain gorillas in Africa.
The research currently been undertaken by The Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project also found that the frequency and severity of the respiratory disease outbreaks among mountain gorillas in Uganda, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo is increasing.
The finding, which for the first time confirms that life-threatening diseases can be transmitted by humans to these critically endangered animals, is of particular concern because the parks where these Mountain Gorillas are located in Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, are surrounded by the densest populations in Africa.
Additionally, these aforementioned nations count on gorilla tourism as it brings thousands of people from around the world to help earn much-needed hard currency to fund local economies and the national parks that shelter the animals.
At the epicenter of the long-running civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo lies Virunga National Park, home to more than 200 of the only 720 mountain gorillas remaining in the world. Seventh Art Releasing's documentary RETURN TO VIRUNGA: THE BATTLE TO SAVE THE MOUNTAIN GORILLAS follows a small but dedicated force of forest rangers risk their lives to save one of the world's greatest and most vulnerable species. What does the future hold for Congo's mountain gorillas? Can these great apes still be saved?
Click here for more information on RETURN TO VIRUNGA.
Click here to go to the LA Times article.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Love During Wartime to make North American premiere at Tribeca Film Festival
Los Angeles, CA (April 1, 2011) – 7th Art Releasing announced today that Gabriella Bier’s documentary Love During Wartime will make its North American premiere at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, which starts on April 20th.
Love During Wartime follows Jasmin, newlyweds trying to build a life together against what look like impossible odds: She's Israeli, he's Palestinian. When their homelands turn their backs on them, they choose to live in exile. This tender tale of a love infiltrated by politics follows a real-life Romeo and Juliet on their odyssey from the Middle East through an inhospitable Europe. As their hopes rise and then fade with each bureaucratic hurdle, will their love survive?
Director Gabriella Bier graduated from the documentary department at the University College of Film, Radio, Television and Theatre in Stockholm 1997. Prior to that she worked as a journalist for press and TV, with African culture and social issues as fields of interest. Gabriella's work focuses on cultural conflicts from a personal angle.
The 10th Annual Tribeca Film Festival will kick off in New York City, April 20 – May 1, 2011.
Love During Wartime screenings: Sunday, April 24, 2011, 7:30PM, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 9 Tuesday, April 26, 2011, 8:30PM, AMC Loews Village 7 - 3 Wednesday, April 27, 2011, 3:00PM, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 7 Saturday, April 30, 2011, 3:45PM, Clearview Cinemas Chelsea 8
Click here to go to the Tribeca Film Festival website
