[Cz-L] Popovici film

Buna Ziua, liebe
Czernowitzers:
 
Here is a progress report on
the Popovici film. The title will be
simply: “POPOVICI.” I have been
digesting data and filling fat files with notes on possible structure that
should lead to avoiding yet another Holocaust film which many audiences sta=
y
away from because too many film makers have practiced film exploitation of =
the
victims that leaves audiences angry and depressed.
 
Making films, even very low
budget films, is an expensive undertaking and in order to raise funds for
production, the filmmaker needs to structure his projects to have every cha=
nce
to allow investors to recoup their investment and to earn some profits.
 
Film audiences generally seek
a “lift” from a movie and, while we are dealing with one of=
 the greatest
horrors of history, there are positive items on which one can focus in a fi=
lm.
 
In reviewing all the material
at hand I found myself emotionally overcome by the decency of Popovici and =
his
parallels recorded by Yad Vashem, designated as Righteous Among Nations. I=
 found a positive theme evolving from this: “As long
as the world will produce people like Popovici and Schindler and the thousa=
nds
recorded by Yad Vashem, the world will heal itself and move forward no matt=
er
how many Hitlers or Stalins crop up in our midst.” Our protagonist =
voices
such a line at the end in an emotional summary.
 
The structure of the film is
simple. In effect it becomes a docudrama. An elderly man, a Czernowitz sur=
vivor, thanks
to Popovici, brings his grandchildren to Romania as a tourist and also take=
s
them to the unveiling of a formidable statue of Popovici.
 
While there he tells the
children his story and that of Popovici. Our storyteller’s family =
is based on a composite of real stories of
survivors, many of them your stories, list members. His father was a
contemporary of Popovici and as he goes over the history of the two familie=
s, we
get a brief perspective of the events leading to WW II.
 
Most young people, certainly
in North America, are totally ignorant of this history and very few, even i=
n Romania,
have ever heard of Popovici or Transnistria, etc. Thus this becomes an imp=
ortant film in terms
of providing the young and future generations with a perspective they�=
�ve
lacked. Also, for Romania, the film will
work as an image builder since the only thing people around the world have
known about Romania is that it provided a home for Prince Dracula.
 
Our story teller functions as
voice-over narrator to tie together the various events that we dramatize wi=
th
live action photography mixed with archival newsreel footage. This device =
of having a story teller, often
in voice-over, becomes a great cost saver in dubbing the film into differen=
t
languages. Also this is enjoyed by audiences.
 
 I found a progressive Romanian producer,
Razvan Sabie of Carter Films, to function as co-producer in an Official Tre=
aty
Co-Production. What impressed me about
Razvan was that he runs the first Romanian film company that imported high
definition film equipment. He is intelligent and technically far more au co=
urante
than I. (I am a technological dinosaur having used a wire recorder in my fi=
rst
audio assignment, one step removed from Edison’s original cylinder)=
 I introduced
this Bucuresti-based producer to Mr. Florentin Lehaci while Lehaci visited =
Bucuresti
to interview a relative of Popovici. This was a productive move since Razva=
n is
fluent in English and Mr. Lehaci struggles with it.
 
International Co-production Treaties
are negotiated by a Canadian Ministry named Heritage Canada which has signe=
d
such Treaties for Canada with over 50 countries. Canadian participation in=
 international
co-production runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. The bulk of th=
is
co-production is between Canada and France and the U.K., of course, but Can=
ada
has a treaty with Romania signed some time ago.
 
The administration of these
co-productions is handled by an agency named Telefilm Canada which also
administers the Canadian Feature Film Fund which invests roughly fifty perc=
ent
of the Canadian’s share of the budget in such
co-productions.

Telefilm’s counterpart in
Romania is called CNC. When I first
approached Telefilm Canada about this project I received a very enthusiasti=
c
response. They felt that this would be
an excellent and worth while project for a Canada-Romania co-production. R=
azvan approached CNC in Bucuresti and
received an equally positive response, though they suggested that a documen=
tary
on this subject should be made first and if that were successful it could b=
e
followed by a film. That makes little sense
since the film as outlined above is a docudrama which is a documentary with
dramatized segments that couldn’t be captured on film in an honest =
documentary –
which in this case would end up to simply be a series of interviews or talk=
ing
heads.
 
Lo and behold, as we’ve
learned with the ups and downs of the Popovici plaque project, good intenti=
ons
inevitably run up against blocks. I
received from my contact at Telefilm Canada a notice that they had received
 from Heritage Canada that there is a problem with the Romanian treaty and t=
hat
no co-productions may be undertaken until this is straightened out. I cont=
acted Heritage Canada to ask what the problem was and if I could help. They=
 are restricted to dealing with only their counterparts but as an NGO I can =
go over heads. They very politely told me that they know what they're doing =
and they'll advise me when the problem has been sorted out.
 
At my age I no longer buy
green bananas and experience has taught me that waiting for Heritage Canada
might involve another generation. Some
five years ago or more, the Honourable Sheila Copps, Minister of Heritage
Canada, signed a Letter of Intent with India to negotiate a co-production
treaty. She was subsequently squeezed
out of government by Prime Minister Martin and now, going on six years late=
r,
Canada still has no treaty with India.
 
In the interim, India signed
co-production treaties with England and Italy, so it might me safe to assum=
e
that the problem lies within Heritage Canada. Since it is impossible to le=
arn anything from that ministry, I
approached the Indians through the Indian High Commission in Ottawa asking
simply, what is the problem? Their
response was succinct, witty and very clear, “It takes two to tango=
,” they
replied.
 
My contact at Telefilm once
explained that it would be possible in a roundabout way to do a co-producti=
on
with India by bringing in another country such as England and doing it as a=
 “tripartite”
as they refer to a 3-way co-production. In
other words, we would do a coproduction with a producer in England and they=
, in
turn, sign a coproduction with India and the three of us are in the same be=
d
but legally assumed to be in different rooms.
 
In the Popovici film, I
intended to have our narrator’s grandchildren asking questions, whi=
ch prompts
him to take them to Israel to see Yad Vashem and there take in whatever the=
y
have on Popovici while getting snippets of several other stories on Righteo=
us
Among Nations. This could justify an
Israeli co-production and Canada has a treaty with Israel. I heard of seve=
ral co-productions that have
taken place between Israel and Romania so I assumed that they had a treaty,
too. I now recall an account exec on
Madison Avenue many years ago wagging a finger at me, saying, “Neve=
r assume because
that makes an “ass” out of “u” and �=
�me.”
 
After I contacted several
Israeli producers to query them about co-production and getting enthusiasti=
c
responses, I learned that Israel has no treaty with Romania. This is like =
boxing. You get knocked down, you get up, you get knocked down, you get up.
 
I have now e-mailed the
administrator at Romania’s CNC to find out what the problem is in t=
he treaty
and also to learn of what treaties exist between Romania and other countrie=
s. I am told that they're not very good about responding to queries.
 
If they, like Heritage Canada,
do not respond, I will take the matter to Canada’s Prime Minister H=
arper’s officeand to President Traian Basescu of Romania, a
namesake of Popovici. I once got nowhere
with Cuba’s film unit and then wrote to El Presidente Fidel Castro.=
  That really woke up their film people.
 
As Walter Cronkite used say
at the end his newscasts, “And that’s the way it is.�=
�
 
I’m off to Los Angeles next
week for a month and will talk to whoever will listen about Popovici but I=
’m
going primarily to audition a group of actors on another project, to see my
kids, and to pitch a couple of less
complex projects. Showbiz has never been
easy.
 
All the best to all,
Andy
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Received on 2009-01-07 18:25:38