Life in Harbin: Leonard

My father says Leonard very rarely talked of his childhood in Harbin. He spoke once of his mother’s “home remedies” and once of a conflict with a Guomindang officer:
Aga, his mother, would brew a glass of raw ground liver each morning for Leonard to drink; Aga considered it an aid for a health problem of [...]

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Current Situation

After a lengthy discussion with Jeremiah on how to upload files I have recorded to the blog, WordPress will still not accept them, even after converted to .mp3.  Other than that, my project is progressing nicely; I’ve recorded the interviews necessary, and hope to have them up as soon as I find a way to [...]

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Ten Lists Part II

by Zoe Pollak

Ten Negative Memories of Childhood (to supplement the past week’s list, not in chronological order)

1. Feeling out of control of my parents’ lives when they dropped me off at my kindergarten class. Every day I went through a ritual with the parent who dropped me off, making them promise not to get [...]

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Chapter 4: A Re-examination

I decided to look back at my Bar Mitzvah blessing, now knowing where my Grandfather’s words came from.

The line that now stands out to me the most is the one right after he tears up, “Be a human crutch to those who fall”. In the first few lines of his speech, [...]

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Aga 1

Verbally recounting her stories, it seemed as though Aga was again in the midst of
dramatic wartime scenes (says my father), and that the emotions 70 years ago were still as keen in her mind.
Aga’s husband, Kuka (Victor), was an aide to Admiral Kolchak, head of the White forces in Siberia during the Russian Civil War. [...]

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Adapted and addicted

Have you ever started having entire conversations with people just to realize the person was having a conversation with somebody else on their Bluetooth?
Do you remember when you were in middle school or elementary when you begged your parents for a cell phone? Or when it got to the point that everywhere you turned or [...]

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Digital Storytelling – One in 8 Million

NYTimes – One in 8 Million – New York Characters in Sound and Images
Click on the image for one of my favorite stories - The Walker.

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Chapter 3: The Tape

Two weeks ago, I was introduced to a new element to my story I had not considered. I always knew my Grandfather was a gambler and he was in Gambler’s Anonymous (GA) for years, but that is all I knew. When I was home recently for Thanksgiving, ironically right around the time a year after [...]

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Update

Nothing major has happened in this past couple of weeks, so I have nothing interesting to post on the blog this week.  I’m currently solidifying what equipment I’ll be using to record the interviews, and scheduling said interviews with my family members.  Unfortunately, my great-uncle passed last friday, so I’ll be unable to include him [...]

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ONLY 10 DAYS AWAY

The New Jewish Filmmaking Project at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
December 17th, 2009 * 6:00 – 8:30pm *
Don’t miss this event! Click here for the facebook invitation.

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Ten Lists

I just wanted to add  something before you read this post: Because for this assignment I’m thinking of a bunch of negative things, I can see why I might come across as harboring a bunch of negative feelings. So just a reminder, this is supposed to be glass-half-empty (nostalgic), but the next post will be [...]

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Pupik

Maybe you’ve heard the word. Or even wrote your master’s thesis about it. Although both are unlikely, allow me to invite you to a Yiddish based series of thoughts, comedic shorts, and interviews.

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Is It Worth It?-Part 2

Chaya and Yosef remained in Novograd Volinskiy, known at that time as Zvyagel. They lived a noble life: built their own house (which was later destroyed in WWII), had three children, and loved to help the less fortunate..they were not that far off from that themselves.
Chaya never questioned her decision to remain in Novograd even though [...]

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Coming Back

I visited my elementary school with my dad today. Surprisingly, I hadn’t set foot at Marin School in years. Normally, I see my old school through the glaze of the car window, but don’t really look at it. Today, though, I decided to see what it would feel like to physically revisit my childhood.
            We [...]

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Interview Questions(Rough Draft)

1. What role did religion play in your childhood?
2.  What attitude did your parents have towards religion?
3.  What was your stance on religion when raising children?  Did you tend to lean either way?
4.  What is your stance on religion nowadays?
5.[Pato(My grandfather)] Do you have any memories of Solomon Lowenstein?
6.(All besides Pato) What do you know [...]

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A Passion for People

Do you ever wonder why the world is the way it is?

Why some people have it off so good with mansions and Ferraris?

Why others are left to rot away next to gutters with feeling nothing except anger neglect and shame?
Walking through the streets of any town or city with my dad (San Francisco [...]

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Chapter 2: My Love

It’s time to elaborate.
As I mentioned in “The Beginning: My Side”, I got into a relationship a little over two years ago. A relationship that would change the way I see the world, and help allow me to define who I am today.
Alex was her name, and she was special.  When we first met, almost [...]

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Generation Gap

As you may or may not be able to tell, this blog is ultimately about the idea of survival. Not like, the guys who stockpile gold and ammunition while living off of Twinkies and deer urine. No, this is a more philosophical idea of survival, focusing on the survival of humanity as a [...]

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Intimacy or Strain

Although my father had told me of my grandpa’s affairs, it never set in. As my dad talked of Leonard’s womanizing ways, I wondered about the extent; and I believed it safe to trust my grandfather in general-loyalty to his wife. But recently my dad very casually brought up the somewhat familiar story of my [...]

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Getting to Know the Family: Part 1

As I have begun to look into part of my family’s past in relation to the streets of San Francisco, I noticed more than just a passing few connections. It’s beginning to look like my family’s more recent history has been closely intertwined with the foggy city. Not only have the two characters I’ve [...]

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Bonding with the brothers.

The similarities with my dad are endless but what about Andy?
I feel all these similarities with him through stories, other people, photographs yet why?
How does this make any sense?
Where is this unusual quick subliminal connection coming from anyway?
In some ways like his love for travel, a stimulating conversation, a nice long run, and our love [...]

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What lies beneath the surface

Soooo here’s a little, shortened down glimpse into my me and my dad’s wacky relationship…
We kind of have a lot in common, including giant late afternoon sunny summer eggs and bagel breakfasts after a nice run on the mountain.
We wrestle, play in the garden, order the same “pablo burrito” at Hi-tec every week, and debate [...]

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How Yiddish Are YOU?

Click on the photo below and log onto facebook to find out!

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Schedule

At my last meeting with Jeremiah Moore, we sceduled out a workplan, deciding when to begin production and post-production of my project.  As of such (And because the quality is rather bad) I have decided to not edit the interview of my grandpa that I’ve been sitting on.  We’ve decided that production will begin mid-december, [...]

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Senator Ettelson and the Crime of the Century

Chicago has always been a tough town, and those near the seats of power often hear things they’d rather not. My distant cousin, Illinois State Senator Sam Ettelson, was no exception. According to Marjorie Warvelle Bear’s A Mile Square of Chicago, he was born in Chicago on November 19th 1874 to Benjamin and Flora Ettelson. [...]

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Time Travel

From a young age, I have always wanted to time-travel. When I read books, I not only imagine myself in the place of the characters, but picture my life in the pages’ long-passed histories, a Zoe plucked out of today and teleported to 1760s Europe, 1850s South, or 1940s nuclear America. When I watch black [...]

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The horror of looking too skinny in front of your Jewish grandmother

“Where is your butt? What happened to it?” my babushka exclaimed when I came home for the first time in months. “Did you leave it in New York?”
“You look like you came out of a death camp,” my mom seconded.
I had just arrived back to San Francisco after settling into adult life on the East [...]

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The Beginning: My Side.

I grew up in California, and my Grandfather lived in New York.  Every year, at least once, from the time I was a year old my family would go out to visit my Grandparents. When I’d see him, I’d get bombarded with hugs and kisses, and all I wanted to do was play. He used [...]

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Ah! Sha-nan-agans!

bull⋅shit
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// ]]> /ˈbʊlˌʃɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [bool-shit] Show IPA noun, verb, -shit⋅ted or -shit, -shit⋅ting, interjection Slang: Vulgar.
–noun
nonsense, lies, or exaggeration.
Shmegegge

-noun
(Yiddish) baloney; hot air; nonsense
 
 

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The Bible of the Future

Until this past week, I’d been writing this blog blissfully unaware of where the hell I was going with it.  I figured I’d write some stories about loosely related topics and, you know, stuff would happen, and it would be a coherent text.  This sounded reasonable until I tried to explain it out loud, at [...]

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Facebook Group

A couple weeks back, when suggesting the idea of creating a facebook group to advertise the project, I joked about making a group titled “Do You Like Learning About Your Great GrandFather?”  This dream has now become a reality (click here to see said reality) and while somewhat joking, hopefully it will attract some attention [...]

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Glimpsing

Although my cousin and I were slightly afraid and timid in his presence, my feeling of my grandfather Leonard was of love and of respect. Stories of him are filled mostly with ferocious daring, so I had begun to picture him only with those traits. I was surprised when my dad told me recently he [...]

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Sides

To understand my family I cannot leave my grandfather out, who through influence of behavior and blood moved its course from the tracings laid out by Susi. He was a fiery and rascally character who in the womb had been pummeled around in his mother’s war-time escape from Russia. With deeply Russian features and tall, [...]

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treading water

I am up to my ears in bits and pieces. I am immersed in parts of my family’s story, in clues to follow-up on, in tales that must continue to be reinvented, imbued with life. But because there is so much, so much, so much time gone by and so much family I must consult [...]

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Another Birthday, Another Cupcake

I chose a new photograph to write about this weekend, and it just so happens that it revolves around another Boulder birthday with Hannah. After my mother and I had finished our pieces and began to read the other’s writing, I commented on her broader approach, noting her more general response in comparison to the [...]

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By Any Other Name

Question: How does a family with little German heritage get a German surname?
Answer: To  be determined.
As family mysteries go, ours is small but puzzling. Our name, Wegbreit, is distinctly German, meaning something like “Broadway” or “wide street,” but we have few ties to Germany.  We did not suffer the indignity of changing our name because [...]

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Hannah (As Seen Through Two Angles)

I decided to create another blogpost like the one I posted a couple weeks before this one. In this post, I again reflected on a photograph (only this time my memory played itself out more chronologically), and again I asked my mother to write about the photograph from her own perspective. And again, neither one [...]

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Starting with the lovely McAllister Street

An idea for my final project under the New Jewish Filmmaking Project has arose in my unfortunately-overstuffed brain. I would like to take a look at individual sections of North San Francisco that my family members are continuing to tell me stories about, and that are the areas that I adore. To begin with, [...]

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Two of Four

My dad feels that Steve, his older brother, was affected more dramatically by the war—via its direct effects on Susi, their mother. Steve was born on the war’s cusp, in 1944, the eldest of four brothers. My dad says Steve reacted to the Holocaust’s underpinnings in a different way than the other three, as reactions are always [...]

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Influences

I sometimes wonder if I’d be interested in writing if my mother weren’t a writer. Ever since I was little she encouraged me to read and write, whether for a school assignment or for pleasure. I don’t actually remember her praising my writing or any specific prompts she suggested because our exchanges were so frequent that they [...]

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Lost Similarities

Reading through my Uncle Andy’s old letters he wrote during his voyage has been totally bizarre. I find that his style of writing and the way he writes his train of thought seems like a more sophisticated version of my own writing. Besides the fact that he is writing about his my own hopes and [...]

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Snapshots

Before I begin my blog-post, I wanted to include some preliminary ideas and quesitons for the multi-media exhibition:
For the multi-media exhibition, I will most likely use lots of photographs with embedded quotes. I will also include excerpts from conversations and formal writings, both from my family and from other writers. There is a film clip [...]

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The Influence of the Streets

The streets you resided in as a child stick with you for life. Your childhood home, so to speak, is where memories reside. I bet almost all of you reading this can remember the address, or at least the street name of the house where you began your life.
For myself, and those around me, [...]

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Andy Strikes Back!

 
That’s right NJFPeers, the Project’s favorite corporate prankster/Jewish Filmmaker Andy Bichlbaum—co-founder of the whimsical advocacy group “The Yes Men”—is back in the headlines. Andy and the Yes Men have previously taken on such nefarious adversaries as the Oil Industry, Haliburton, the news media, and even the US Government. Their strategy? Hold press conferences posing as [...]

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In Raw Form

“Andy sucking on his bottle”—as said by my grandmother—is a phrase strange to hear. I don’t associate this Andy with my dad, but the idea is a familiar image, as if I had known him at the time. His growth, because I am similar to him in many ways, is not a world separated by [...]

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Impact(Revision)

(Click here.  This is meant as an audio aspect only)
Solomon Lowenstein, my great-great grandfather, was locked in a tumultuous debate with himself.  Half of him argued that God does exist, while the other half insisted the contrary.  This battle greatly affected all of his descendants, including me.  Today, my family is hardly actively jewish at [...]

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Atonement

This past Yom Kippur was the first one in five years where I fasted.  And it sucked.  As I entered the 22nd hour, I was doing laps in an olympic-sized pool of self-pity.  For perhaps the first time ever, I regretted taking a day off of work.  The whole time I kept thinking how unnatural the [...]

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Paint Your Street

We’re all familiar with the timeless adage “write what you know,” and it continues to guide writers both young and old. The NJFP has long offered a unique opportunity for young Jewish filmmakers to “film what they know,” taking us on tours of their  homes, histories, streets, and cities—exploring their fears, passions, and dreams. And [...]

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Reconstructions

Last week I had a conversation with my mother about perspective and how it changes with the age and the development of empathy. I included a short transcript. After the transcript both my mother and I wrote a sentence summarizing our conversation, partly using words from the transcript and adding our own as well. (My [...]

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Distanced and Connected

The next two blogs I write will be paraphrasing a conversation between my mother and myself. In this first part, I interviewed my mother and told her about the collaboration aspect of the project. (The following entries are summarized.) Next week, I will continue our conversation and delve deeper into the more cerebral rather than [...]

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Parallax

At some point, we all realize that our parents are not referred to by everyone as “mom” and “dad.” For me, this awareness occurred when I brought myself away from the warmth of my kindergarten classroom to hesitantly watch my dad slip out of my control, getting smaller and smaller as he walked through the [...]

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Ira Glass on Storytelling

Ira Glass talks about how to build a story.

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Links We Like

Thanks for sending your favorite links.
http://www.youtube.com/user/livelavalive
http://diplodocidae.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/RockItOutBlog
http://kimayres.blogspot.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arlen/
http://www.jazclass.aust.com/blog/photos37/blog336dp.htm
http://www.travelblog.org/
http://www.youtube.com/user/hayleyghoover
http://www.youtube.com/user/newscientistvideo

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Week 1: Brainstorming

For my film topic, I have decided to focus on my uncle’s death. David died sixteen years ago of lung cancer, when he was 31 years old. He left three siblings, one being his identical twin brother.
I have come up with a few questions/observations to help me choose what perspectives I want to represent/narrate the [...]

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An In-Between Genre

By Zoe Pollak
David Ofek’s films are out of the ordinary because he employs an in-between genre (part documentary, part story), to narrate an account. In both of his films (Home and The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return), the director/screenwriter chronicles relationships within families and gives the audience the sense that they are [...]

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Not Another Review!

By Corey Abraham
Not Another Jewish Movie, provides the perspective of Jewish teens growing-up in and around San Francisco. The theme: what it means to be a Jewish teenager; was pleasantly riddled with jokes and traditional religious music. The movie runs just about 12 minutes and is a short and sweet look into the eclectic lives [...]

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Andy Bichlbaum’s First Prank

Andy Bichlbaum of the infamous eco-pranksters duo, The Yes Men, spoke to NFJP teens Ashley Thompson and Yenny Martin after the California premier of The Yes Men Fix the World at the Castro Theater. Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno have made their name posing as corporate executives as they infiltrate and expose greed with their political activist [...]

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Kunstlers Look Into Their Father’s Past

The daughters of the 1960’s and ’70’s famous radical defense attorney William Kunstler examine their father’s life and work. 
Emily and Sarah Kunstler talk about making the film and what they discovered in this interview with NJFP teens Mayana Bonapart and Zoe Pollak. 

 
 
 
Screening August 2nd at the Roda Theater in Berkeley
Festival Schedule

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Captured on camera at the SFJFF

The NJFP gang took advantage of their VIP status at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival to interview festival patrons about their favorite Jewish holidays. Watch streaming stories from audience members!

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Your On Camera Bites

Armed with flipcams and chutzpah, young docmakers challenge you to tell your story. Keep your eyes peeled for NJFP teens with cameras at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and tell them about your favorite Jewish holiday.
And may the best bite win! The audience member with the best story will win a prize, to be awarded [...]

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Covenant Foundation Focuses on NJFP

Pointing The Lens At Jewish Identities and Journeys
-By H. Glenn Rosenkrantz, for The Covenant Foundation
San Francisco – Getting inside teenagers’ heads isn’t so easy. But give them a creative outlet, and you’ll be flooded by what flows out….
Take 17-year-old Doria Charlson, for instance. She just graduated from…Read More Here…

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*NJFP Filmmaker Reflects

 
Years after co-directing “Four Short Films About Love“, Sophia reflects on the impact of NJFP and her relationships with her grandparents.

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*One Vote!

This Saturday, the halls of the Contemporary Jewish Museum were filled with young musicians vying for the 500 dollar grand prize at the JCCSF’s third annual Battle of the Bands. The musical stylings of the various groups varied wildly. One band had only two instruments—a harmonica and a first generation Nintendo Game Boy. Another featured [...]

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*Successful Screening Party at CJM

The SF Jewish Film Festival and the CJM’s Young Adult & Teen Film Night presented a screening of NJFP documentary shorts called “inspiring” by the SF Bay Guardian.
Filmmakers Sam Ball, Ed Baraona Brenner, Myles Campbell, Lee Goldin, Andrew Herwitz, Klaira Markenzon, Danny Plotnick, Dan Seeman, Kate Stilley, Sophia Teper and Karni Zemel were present to [...]

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*NJFP Film available with REFRAME

A Latino-Jewish couple strolls through San Francisco’s Mission district, a triad of sisters laze on a sunny Sunday morning, four grandmothers face off at a Russian family dinner… Intimately photographed scenes explore how families come together, and sometimes fall apart.

FOUR SHORT FILMS ABOUT LOVE (Golden Gate Award, 2004 San Francisco International Film Festival) is now [...]

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*How to Post

To post to the NJFP Blog: Create a wordpress.com account and email njfp@citizenfilm.org to request authoring permission.

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*Do I Have To?

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Breakfast Burrito Begins

Check out the opening moments of Andrew’s scintillating voice over for his Break Fast Burrito Story.

Break Fast Burrito Begins.mp3

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Let The Shooting Begin

Shooting has begun for this round of NJFP films. We took off to the Richmond to start shooting Andrew’s Break Fast Burrito Story. Here you can see Andrew and David avoiding Yom Kippur services by loitering about the Richmond. Ultimately they play guitar, do battle with plungers, salivate over duck, and discuss the proper pronunciation of the [...]

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A Messy Chanukkah

My story is about one fun Chanukkah. My mom and I were making jelly doughnuts. We tried to decide how to put the jelly in and when. We decided to put the jelly in before we deep fried the doughnuts. This was somewhat of a mistake. The jelly burst out of about half of the jelly [...]

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Break Fast Burrito

Hi, I’m Andrew.  My film will focus on Yom Kippur.  Last year I decided to get more involved with Yom Kippur.  I went to an orthodox service.  Strangely, instead of being more observant, it was less.  We ditched temple, played Monopoly, loitered in the Richmond and broke our fast at a Taqueria.

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Passover at the Plotnicks

We had Passover this week at my house. 17 people. I made the best brisket ever. The soup was damn good as well, though one batch of Matzo Balls ended up in the trash. No comment. We had to rearrange the house. I got kind of huffy with my mother-in-law once. A chair rearrangement kerfuffle [...]

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Not Another Jewish Movie

 ______________________

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Cinematography Assignment #1

These three shots represent a Wide Shot, Medium Shot, and Close Up. First, the trees bloom in spring. Second, the bees pollinate the flowers. Third, the flowers fall and decompose on the ground.
– Anna

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Shooting at Karni’s House

About a week and a half ago we all went down to the Sunset to shoot Karni’s story about making jelly doughnuts, or sufganiyot.As we set up the first shots of Karni walking from the bus stop, we had to rush to time it exactly right with the passing buses and I learned how to sound [...]

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The Brand New NJFP Film Holidaze to screen at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Holidaze plays as part of the “Jews in Shorts” program:
Thursday, August 7, 9:30 pm @ The Roda Theater at The Berkeley Rep.
Saturday, August 9, 1:00 pm @ The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
The SFJFF box office opens June 24.  For more information call 925-275-9490 or visit www.sfjff.org.

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Lalo’s Jerusalem Screens, Saturday June 7

THE NJFP’S “LALO’S JERUSALEM” will be part of the all-night party to mark the opening of the Contemporary Jewish Museum.
Groove, learn, examine, discuss, and create at DAWN 2008, 8pm til morning, an ALL-Night Cultural Arts Festival and Celebration of the Jewish holiday Shavuot at the Grand Opening of San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum.

LALO’S JERUSALEM screens at 9 pm
Lalo’s Jerusalem
2007, [...]

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For my peace-nick parents, there were very few programs in the ninja-filled, laser-blasted landscape of 1980s cartoons that they approved of.
Ghostbusters was deemed appropriate, because the people getting shot were already dead. So while the other boys were engaging in a plastic arms race of Ninja Turtle Pizza Launchers and GI Joe Armored Personnel Carriers, [...]

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How Would Your Bubbe Vote?

Barak Obama wants you to visit your grandmother. No, really L.A. Times columnist and E! talking head Joel Stein reports, the Jewish Council for Education and Research (a pro-Obama action committee) is organizing “The Great Schlep” to Fort Lauderdale over the Columbus Day weekend. Why?
More than hockey moms or gun-toting God lovers, old Floridian Jews are [...]

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