24-02-2014

PRODUCTION: Nazi loot docu generates world headlines

By
    Buried by Will Tizard Buried by Will Tizard

    PRAGUE: The premiere documentary of a US journalist based in the Czech Republic, Buried, has made global news with its revelations that 103 Torah scrolls stolen during WWII have been found in Russia.

    The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Press all reported this week on the discovery, made during a recent location shoot in Nizhny Novgorod.

    The film, a four-year project by reporter and journalism professor Will Tizard, who is also producing along with Jefe Brown, has embraced crowdfunding to reach its goal of completing shooting (http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/buried), a still-unusual approach in Central Europe. Budgeted at $40,000, the documentary follows some unconventional investigators as they track down property in many forms stolen from the Jewish community during the Holocaust.


    Production by Prague-based AskFilm, is expected to wrap in spring, with animation, music and archival material mixed in during post-production over early summer. A US promotional tour is also planned in which Hungarian Rabbi Slomo Koves, who made the Torahs discovery at a state libary in Russia, will shed light on the importance of the priceless scrolls, which are at the heart of Jewish worship.


    “We were amazed to find such a stash of these incredible, beautiful Torahs," Tizard told FNE. "Some are centuries old and they contain Hebrew script in calligraphy that no living person now knows how to inscribe. They've been just sitting on shelves in the Lenin Regional Scientific Library for 69 years - it's like something out of The Maltese Falcon." The quest began in 2010 when a group of Florida lawyers began excavating a site near Prague where  a huge cache of Nazi documents was discovered in 1946 by a secret US Army raiding party.
    The film's final budget is still being finalized and distribution rights are not yet locked.

    Production information
    AskFilm 
Pod Bastami 6
    16000 Pague 6
    Czech Republic
Phone: +42 (0) 737 338 447
    http://buriedmovie.wordpress.com/

    This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

    Credits
    Director/producer: Will Tizard
    Producer: Jefe Brown

    Research: T. Dennis Reece