From Silver Spring To The Silver Screen
An American in Cannes: Fifteen-year-old Michele Pinczuk will screen her short documentary L'Chaim Israel at the Cannes International Film Festival.
An American in Cannes: Fifteen-year-old Michele Pinczuk will screen her short documentary L'Chaim Israel at the Cannes International Film Festival.
Sam PinczukL'Chaim Israel
- Director: Michele Pinczuk
- Genre: Documentary
- Running Time: 4 minutes
Not Rated
Birthday wishes: L'Chaim Israel asks Holocaust survivors what they would give to Israel as a gift, while mixing archival footage like this unidentified man and child.
Birthday wishes: L'Chaim Israel asks Holocaust survivors what they would give to Israel as a gift, while mixing archival footage like this unidentified man and child.
The Cannes International Film Festival is underway. Every year, well-known directors, actors and producers attend the glamorous, sometimes decadent party on the French Riviera. But it's not all play and no work. There are many filmmakers there who are not famous trying to get movers and shakers to see their movies. Among them will be 15-year-old Michel Pinczuk from Silver Spring, Maryland, just outside of Washington, D.C.
Her short documentary, L'Chaim Israel, asks local Holocaust survivors what they would like to give Israel for its birthday.
"If I would give Israel something for the 60th birthday," says concentration camp survivor and interviewee Leon Merrick, "I would give everything. I would even give my life if I had to."
Like a teenage version of Night and Fog, L'Chaim Israel is a mix of archival footage and interviews with family members and other Holocaust survivors set to the song "When I First Saw You" from the movie Dream Girls.
But before her big debut at Cannes, Michele Pinczuk makes a stop to talk to Liane Hansen about making the film, how it got to Cannes and her upcoming projects.
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