A Day at Zuccotti Park and Daniel Terna, Brooklyn, NY will be the two films included in the program.

Click the links to view the films and read more about the conference here.

I first met Daniel Terna through his father, painter and Holocaust survivor Fred Terna. The Ripple Project has worked with Fred on several projects, including the multimedia exhibition Mirrors, and Shared Memory, a short film about his life of survival through art and creativity. At the premier of Shared Memory, Fred revealed to me he had a 20 something year old son named Daniel —  whose photography work was transitioning into the pursuit of film. Upon meeting Daniel at their brownstone in Brooklyn, I was surprised to learn this aspiring filmmaker was interested in making a film about his father’s road trips across the United States with his first wife Stella some 40 years ago. Inspired by images taken by Fred and Stella, Daniel set out fo retrace their travels, retake their images and frame the story of a woman who died before he was born. The short film Daniel Terna documents this journey of discovery for The Ripple Project’s Vignettes Series.

Excutive Producers: Micheal McDevitt and Liron Unreich

Directed by Dylan Angell

Director of Photography  Tal Unreich

Edited by Joe Morgan

Additional footage shot by Daniel Terna

Photos by Fred Terna

Music by Phantom Fauna

Daniela Schiller who is featured in Reconsolidation, a segment of  The Ripple Project: One was recently featured on Studio 360 performing a monologue about her experience of being filmed by the Ripple Project. Listen to it here.

This short film is in no way trying to give a sense of the scale of destruction that Hurricane Sandy caused NYC- compared to Redhook, the Rockaways and other parts of the city the destruction cause to lower Manhattan was comparitively slight but residents still had to endure days without power or access to basic needs as most  businesses were closed beneath 34th street. This is simply a document of some of the things we saw while biking around 2 days after the storm and an attempt to capture the strange quiet mood that engulfed the city. -Dylan Angell

Directed by Dylan Angell Camera by Daniel Terna Edited by Joe Morgan Music by Jeff Tobias

Executive Producers Liron Unreich and Michael McDevitt

MUSE Film and Television is a non-profit executive production company that uses film and digital media to create quality films on visual art and culture. MUSE initiates projects, manages production and distribution, and disseminates films to the broadest possible audience.

MUSE coordinates and manages the production of films from inception to completion by creating partnerships with independent filmmakers, technical consultants, content advisors, broadcasters, and distributors. Using the most advanced technologies MUSE enriches its film projects through parallel productions, which include books, study-guides, DVDs, and websites.

MUSE’s mission is based on the belief that film is one of the most important ways to appreciate and understand art. By examining art through historical and cultural contexts, MUSE documentaries seek to enhance the art experience.

Like a stone dropped into a pond, the Shoah created ripples. Radiating outward through the lives of individuals and communities, each one contains a story that continues to impact our lives. The Ripple Project:One is a film consisting of six 20-minute chapters, each documenting the lives of ordinary people living the ripple effect of extraordinary circumstances.

The film will introduce audiences to a sharp-minded poet in Maryland who has dedicated his life to recording the stories of fellow Shoah survivors; a grandfatherly painter in Brooklyn whose art provided a means of expressing, processing and sharing experiences beyond words; a New York-based Holocaust scholar and artist who visits a Jerusalem-based painter, survivor and friend hoping to encounter a living example of the courage of clandestine artists in the camps; a Rwandan genocide survivor documenting her journey as she seeks out the wisdom and guidance from a fading generation of Holocaust survivors; a Terezin survivor and star of the children’s opera Brundibar whose granddaughters in Florida who know little of their grandmother’s strength and nothing of her fame; A daughter discovers synchronicity between her scientific career and her father’s method of coping with his traumatic past.

While putting a human face on familiar, yet unfathomable, statistics, this character-driven narrative documentary highlights the multigenerational effect of genocide by giving audiences glimpses into the lives of survivors and their families living in communities much like our own in the United States, Europe and Israel. Each of the characters profiled conveys the responsibility of survivors and younger generations to pass on the lessons and experiences of the Shoah. Although the chapters are very much connected as present-day acts of historical remembrance, they are most basically human tales of the inheritance of creativity and the drive to share and preserve one’s own legacy and family story.

David Friedman(n) [1893-1980] was a renowned painter and graphics artist in Berlin renowned for his portraits drawn from life. His quick-sketching talents led to an additional career as a leading press artist of the 1920’s. However, almost his complete works were looted by the Gestapo in 1941. David depicted human fate as a refugee in Prague, as a prisoner in the Lodz Ghetto, in the Gleiwitz I sub-camp of Auschwitz, and as a survivor. He survived the Lodz Ghetto by sketching portraits of officials in exchange for provisions. In Gleiwitz I, his artistic skills were recognized and his life spared by the whims of the SS. His wife and little daughter were ultimately killed despite his efforts to save them. Though David eventually remarried and built a new life first in Czechoslovakia, then Israel, Chicago, and finally in St. Louis, Missouri, he continued painting scenes from his tortured past. The responsibility of bearing witness weighed heavily on his conscience, even before his liberation. To give form to all that misery, to show it to the world – this was always his intent. Torn from his memories, he created the powerful series, Because They Were Jews!

David’s daughter Miriam from his second marriage has spent her life consumed by a drive to rescue his legacy from oblivion and ensure its rightful place in history. Knowing that his work would best survive through her own perseverance, Miriam has found herself on her own journey which has led to personal discovery unveiling lost history and prewar works. David’s art weaves a tapestry of the joys and horrors that he experienced, witnessed and chronicled. Significant exhibitions of her father’s art resulting from her successful pursuits have created a stronger conviction to preserve the legacy of David Friedmann for future generations.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Directed by Liron Unreich and with cinematographer David Stragmeister, this past week and a half of shooting has featured Daniela’s groundbreaking research at The Mount Sinai Medical Center in Manhattan alongside her talents as a storyteller and musician, her rocky-esque training as a kick boxer, and her ongoing experience as the daughter of a survivor.

We, at The Ripple Project eagerly await the fruit of out labors as “Reconsolidation” enters postproduction.