The Last Days

Where can you see a recent Academy Award-winning film for free with the chance to question, in person, the director, producer, and one of the main screen presences immediately following the showing? That would be York Square Cinema, thanks to the new Media Arts Endowment of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale.

The film is The Last Days, winner in the Best Documentary Film category at last weekend's Academy Awards. "We're lucky that the filmmakers are willing to come to Yale all the way from California to present it a week after they won the Oscar," Andrew Hauptman, SY '91, co-funder of the endowment, said.

Hauptman and his wife Ellen Bronfman, ES '91, have
donated a substantial sum of money to the Slifka Center to bring events like this
screening to campus. How substantial is the sum? "It's significant enough that
it's not a one-year or five-year kind of commitment," Hauptman said. "It's a commitment for the long term. It's an endowment."

In addition to film, the endowment could eventually be used for events related to journalism, television, or photography. Even though Judaism will be a consistent theme connecting these productions, the stated goal is campuswide interest. "We're committed to bringing to campus persons
and events that will interest everybody, not
only Jews," Yale Jewish Chaplain Rabbi James Ponet said.

Yale Hillel Student Co-coordinator Sophie Oberfield, SY '01, is optimistic for the new endowment. "It's really exciting," she said. "I think it should do a lot of really neat things for us in terms of programming." Claire Cherlin, BK '01, a film studies major active in Slifka, said the endowment will provide a Jewish cultural
context for world events. "So much of our culture is media," she said. Through events like Monday's screening, the endowment should insure that Jewish culture is not
overlooked.

The Last Days, the endowment's inaugural feature, is the story of five Hungarian Holocaust survivors. It incorporates
eyewitness accounts from the survivors
with historical footage and a score from Academy Award-winning composer Hans Zimmer. The film is the first theatrical release from Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation. The foundation's goal is to videotape and preserve testimony fromHolocaust survivors.

The foundation's effort began at Yale with the Sterling Memorial Library Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. "Spielberg took up what Yale began," Ponet said. Over 50,000 interviews
have been gathered so far as a result of the Shoah Foundation's efforts. Spielberg, who is the executive producer of The Last
Days, will not be attending Monday's screening. But director
James Moll, producer Jume Beallor, and Holocaust survivor Renée Firestone, who appears in the film, will.

Ponet credits Hauptman and Bronfman, who co-own a film company, Andell Entertainment, with making the upcoming event possible. "We tried for a couple of years to bring Steven Spielberg to campus," Ponet said. Then Hauptman, who had been a large part of that effort, gave Ponet some good news. "He said we don't have Spielberg but we have the 35-millimeter print of his most recent movie," Hauptmann told Ponet.

Hauptman is equally complimentary about Ponet. "Jim Ponet's done a great job working with us to put the whole thing together and I think he deserves the credit," Hauptman said.

Daniel Serviansky, BR '00, is organizing a panel discussion for Holocaust Remembrance Day next month. The Last Days carries personal significance for him. "I'm a grandson of a survivor from Auschwitz who is from Hungary," Serviansky said. "I feel a personal connection to [the film], and I am very happy to see it shown on this campus."

The filmmakers will surely feel a sense of satisfaction in learning of this connection, and in seeing their work touch the heart of the Yale community.

Graphic by Sara Edward-Corbett

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