Eva's Mission - Newsletter Winter 2018

Wow 2017 was a truly memorable year...... Eva shined her light in a darkening world, confronting not just the demons resurfacing in society but also bravely revisiting the dark places of her own past. And 2018 will only be better, we will share all the amazing footage with you, our audience! We can't wait! Thanks to all our supporters, we had the opportunity to film unstoppable Eva on her mission in a world in turmoil. There are too many highlights to mention, but we kicked off the year filming Eva in GERMANY at a high school in Neuenhagen, speaking at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin and in Erfurt at the disturbing location of Topf & Sons, engineers of the Auschwitz ovens. We cannot express enough how courageous Eva has been to visit these locations, chilling even for people without her traumatic history. Then off it was to AMERICA. In collaboration with the University of South Carolina, we filmed Eva on one leg of her American Speaking Tour, addressing one of her largest audiences ever at the USC Koger Centre, at a synagoge in Columbia and in picturesque Charleston, with its iconic Rainbow Row of colourful houses. The USC Department of Visual Art invited Martha Van Der Bly to show the trailer of Eva's Mission and give a lecture on "Documenting the Holocaust in a Transitional Context: From Living Memory to History - Against the Backdrop of an Erosion of the Post-War World Order". In June, we filmed several historic highlights in THE NETHERLANDS. Eva returned to Huis van Bewaring Weteringschans, the former prison in Amsterdam where she was held captive in May 1944. This time it was to give the Freedom Lecture in the adjacent venue De Balie, which was the courtroom at the time. Introduced by Martha Van Der Bly and the trailer of Eva's Mission, she spoke to a sold-out theatre. On 12 June, Anne Frank's birthday, we filmed Eva's return to her former home at Merwedeplein. Eva also visited the Frank family home across the square for the first time since the war. Eva spoke was on the national talk show Jinek, and we had the chance to film her backstage.

We filmed Eva at her own exhibition at the children's section of Resistance Museum (Verzetsmuseum Junior) and in the archives where her brothers oil paintings and all the documents about her are stored. With Eva we went to the Amsterdam Lyceum, her former school, where she gave a talk. In October we filmed Eva returning to BELGIUM for a very special women-only event of the Shabbos Project & the Great Big Challa Bake. In Zeist, just a few kilometres from the former hiding place of her father and brother Heinz, we filmed Eva visiting a refugee centre. The last film shoot of the year was perhaps the most emotional, Eva's return to transit camp Westerbork. This time to give the Freedom Lecture, a triumph of hope over hate. As we (Eva, her daughter Jacky, the film crew and Sipke Witteveen of Kamp Westerbork) drove through a blustering storm in a yet again darkening world to the former transit camp, suddenly a rainbow appeared....

TO BE CONTINUED...

EVA'S MISSION IN THE NEWS

Even though we do not have a marketing budget and the film is not finished, it has already generated a lot of media buzz,  that shows how much interest there is in Eva's story!

Dagblad van het Noorden: Article on the eve of our visit to Westerbork: read it here
NPO Radio 1 Met Het Oog Op Morgen- Interview with Max van Wezel : listen here
RTV Drenthe Drenthe Nu: Interview with Martha  listen here (around the 35 min. mark)
Jinek Interview with Eva in talk show Jinek: watch it here

Eva's mission began in 1986 when she first spoke about her traumatic experiences. After forty years of silence! Eva's work, awarded an MBE by Queen Elizabeth, has changed thousands and perhaps millions of people all over the world, including the filmmakers. For us, the next step is to transcribe all the interviews and lectures that we filmed and construct the story of the film. With Eva silent for so long, now we want to make sure we do not miss a single word!

CAPTURING EVERY IMAGE & WORD: IMAGINATION, RESEARCH, WRITING
In some ways a documentary and a fiction film are opposites. In fiction the script always proceeds the actual filming. In a documentary, you often only construct the story once the filming is finished. So a documentary is closer to the process of sociological or anthropological research, where patterns are constructed after the research is finished. This is what we are doing right now at Eva's Mission.

We feel it is a tremendous honour that Eva has entrusted us with her story. It is also a great responsibility! We had a very successful and productive 2017. You can help us finish the film in 2018! And become part of the unique, exciting and unpredictable journey of Eva's Mission.

Everyone who donates 50 euros or more will receive a series of VLOG's of Eva's Life Lessons. We will soon send out Eva's Second Life Lesson. So why not sign up, receive Eva's valuable life lessons AND and make a contribution to the film Eva's Mission?

The proposal for Eva's Mission that we worked on over the summer received an Amsterdam Art Council Grant! The Art Council valued our artistic approach and storytelling strength and the obvious importance of Eva's story to the city of Amsterdam. The Council also valued the persistence of the filmmaker - as similar grant proposals were rejected in 2014 and in 2016. As Eva says, never ever give up!

Rose Rebel Productions, founded in 2010, aims to produce films and visual art projects that contribute to a sense of common humanity. Eva's mission is perfectly aligned with this idea.

That means we also seek to reach out to partners with a similar goal. In 2017 Rose Rebel Productions initiated and developed what turned out to be a very successful collaboration with De Balie, Kamp Westerbork & the V-Fonds. With Rose Rebel Productions providing the idea & concept and De Balie & Kamp Westerbork a wonderful organisation, this has led to two unforgettable & historic Eva Schloss Freedom Lectures.

For us at Rose Rebel Productions making documentaries is so much more than the filming process. It is also about outreach. And impact. About creating positive change. Read about the mission of Rose Rebel Productions : here

Pictured: Eva Bakkum (asst. producer), Rochelle Brandaw, (interviewee) Martha van der Bly (director) in Kamp Westerbork, October 2017. Click on the picture to see all crew who made this production possible!l click herel

CONTACT THE TEAM OF EVA'S MISSION

info@roserebel.com
+31-6442 26420 (NL)
+44-7535 965149 (UK)

MORE THAN A FILM: OUTREACH