Hybrid San Diego International Jewish Film Festival kicks off this Wednesday

Speaker 1: (00:00)

The San Diego international Jewish film festival returns this Wednesday with both in-person and virtual screenings. One of the opening films is the documentary who will remain, which looks at the Yiddish poetry of Aron Skaer. The film uses his granddaughter as a gateway to a very intimate portrait K P vs. Arts reporter. Beth Amando speaks with the films. Co-directors Emily Felder and Krista P Whitney,

Speaker 2: (00:29)

Krista, to start off, tell us a little bit about the Yiddish book center and what role it played in having this film made. Yeah, well,

Speaker 3: (00:38)

That's, that's a great question. So the Yiddish book center for first of all, is a nonprofit committed to preserving and promoting Yiddish and modern Jewish culture. And, uh, the film really comes out of the Yiddish book center quite directly, Emily and I were both working at the Yiddish book center when we started working on this film. I still work there. And so the Yiddish book center is the producer of, of the film, specifically the Yiddish book, center's Wexler oral history project, which is a growing collection of in depth video, oral histories about Yiddish language and culture. Now we live

Speaker 2: (01:21)

In a culture right now where people seem to be concerned only with the things immediately around them and everything that's very present and recent. So talk a little bit about the challenges of holding on to some of these elements of Yiddish culture, uh, in this kind of an environment

Speaker 3: (01:42)

Mind daily life is, uh, is really looking both at, at the past and how it directly influences the present in terms of Yiddish language and culture, but Yiddish culture. It's something that there weren't a lot of documents online. You know, nowadays people think everything is on Google. Everything is online and, uh, things that are not Googleable are considered not to exist by some people, but of course that's not true. So the Yiddish book center's work is in part becoming a digital address for Yid culture. You can find on the Yiddish book, center's website, all kinds of historical archives. The Yiddish book center has digit digitized over 11,000 Yiddish books. So I think the work of me and my colleagues and really filmmakers and, and culture workers in this space is to create an awareness of the importance and, uh, to build interest in this culture that is really a whole world,

Speaker 2: (02:55)

Emily, who will remain focuses in particular on one Yiddish poet and his granddaughter. And it's not only about him, but this kind of family relationship as well. How did you get involved in this project and kind of what was important to you in structuring it

Speaker 4: (03:15)

Just a little bit about my background. I studied anthropology at the university of Massachusetts, and I knew that I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, but I really wanted a foundation in social sciences and humanities. So I was incredibly drawn to historical archeology and visual ethnography, which basically means how we access the past and how we reconstruct historical narratives with objects and landscapes in the present. So this film was really a perfect intersection. I really fell in love with the project, with the Yiddish language, I'm a Jewish woman. So it really reacquainted me with an entire world that I didn't really know anything about. So began as just a temporary role quickly transformed into this really significant position, both professionally and personally, regarding your question about how to approach editing and this particular story who will remain. It was really emotional to sift through some of the more harrowing hall of cost materials and to have to make a choice as to which image is both appropriate and evocative without being exploitative.

Speaker 4: (04:28)

So even though this film is about Sr didn't wanna paint him as like a brilliant hero or a main character whose survival was more dramatically worthy to examine as if he risked more or faced greater hurdles than the other 6 million Jews who perished I wanted to center him. And I think Christo would agree. We wanted to center him as an artist, as well as a ghetto partisan, who is lucky enough to escape. So yes, this is truly a dramatic story and his poetry is defiant, but he arguably always found refuge in his poetry. And that's kind of the point of this film is, you know, in the ghetto it became his ultimate artistic sanctuary. And so this was just a continuation of his innate creative expression. And so in the editing room painting that kind of PO portrait of a person within the context of the co the Holocaust, uh, was challenging enough. And then we had to incorporate how Hadas tries to access her grandfather, how, you know, his story and how anyone could make sense of the Holocaust. So it was emotionally challenging, technically challeng, narratively challenging, but I think our film really developed into this compelling call and response actually between sots goer and Hadas. It wasn't just about him.

Speaker 2: (05:53)

And how would you describe his poetry for someone who's not

Speaker 3: (05:56)

Familiar with it he's described by, by Hadas, in the film as a nature poet and by other literary scholars. I mean, there is a very, um, a sense of grounding in the natural world. He was born in S Morone, but grew up in OMS in Siber. And so in his own, even in his own narrative of his artistic life, he talks about how those early images of the snow drifts and this just landscape, uh, was a foundational inspiration for him. And I think you can see that through his whole body of work, the way that he, he uses metaphor and animates objects, uh, plants and, uh, rocks, even in the landscape. I'm not a literary scholar though. I did study literature in my undergraduate degree. So I think there's certainly some modernism in there about one thing that I think was interesting to learn for me, uh, with the background in literary studies is that he himself talks about how he though he was very well read in Polish literature and Lithuanian literature. And he didn't really have a concept of Jewish literature when he began writing. And I think that's interesting because, because he, he just sort of started, he, you know, he was inspired to begin writing and in a way, I think that makes it hard to pin him to a particular poetic or literary movement. Yeah. As, as I think EV every poet's poetry is really their own, but I, I think for him, you, you have those, uh, particular influences. I wanna thank you both very much for talking about who will remain. Thanks.

Speaker 1: (07:48)

Thank you. That was Beth. Amando speaking with filmmakers, Emily Felder and Krista P Whitney, who will remain will have an in person this Thursday followed by I online screenings at the San Diego international Jewish film festival.