Crowdfunding call for Holocaust film
"We immediately clicked and I flew to Melbourne to meet her, having already read the book and written the fifth draft of the script."
LAST year The AJN published an article about filmmaker Lexee Gordoun, whose short film Bad Beat had just won numerous awards at international festivals.
Author Anita Selzer read the article and then contacted Gordoun to tell her about her book I am Sasha, written about her father’s survival posing as a teenage girl in Europe during the Holocaust. The book was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s History Awards in 2019.
“We immediately clicked and I flew to Melbourne to meet her, having already read the book and written the fifth draft of the script,” said Gordoun, the director, writer and co-producer with Selzer of the forthcoming film adaption Sasha’s Game.
“As a young Jewish woman in the film industry, I feel it is my responsibility to ensure that our community is represented on screen and is protected by the legacy of those who suffered so that we may live.”
Selzer said of her father, “He had to learn to dress, groom, talk and walk like a girl. Any slip up could cost him his life.”
She said the book I Am Sasha is significant to her “because it is my family story and honours my grandmother’s wish that I write it for publication”, noting that when her grandmother handed her the memoir on which the book is based, she said “I want the world to know what we went through and how we did it”.
“A film of I Am Sasha is important to me because it is an adaptation of the written form in visual representation and as such, would be particularly powerful and impactful on the audience viewing it,” she said.
“I also see a film as a further teaching tool in Holocaust museums and other educational forums.”
Gordoun and Slezer have now launched a crowdfunding page for the film.
“If you find that this project means as much to you as it does to us, we’d appreciate any form of contribution, whether it be a donation or passing the link around through family and loved ones,” Gordoun said.
Support the project: shorturl.at/guyEQ
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