Film screening and discussion of "REFUSENIK”
Sunday, November 1 @ 7 PM
Written, produced and directed by Laura Bialis
117 minutes, color and B&W
Boulder JCC
3800 Kalmia Avenue
Boulder, CO 80301
Google Map
Cost: $8 for Boulder JCC members, $10 for guests, free for students with valid student ID
Introduced by Bill Cohen, founder of Boulder Action for Soviet Jewry with special guest, activist Shirley Goldstein. Talkback with Professors David Shneer (CU-Boulder) and Anna Shternshis (University of Toronto).
REFUSENIK is the first retrospective documentary to chronicle the thirty-year movement to free Soviet Jews. It shows how a small grassroots effort bold enough to take on a Cold War superpower blossomed into an international human rights campaign that engaged the disempowered and world leaders alike. Told through the eyes of activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain - many of whom survived punishment in Soviet Gulag labor camps - the film is a tapestry of first-person accounts of heroism, sacrifice, and ultimately, liberation.
The campaign to free Soviet Jewry is a major event in Jewish history. By 1992, one and a half million Jews had left the Soviet Union to live in freedom as a direct result of what was likely the most successful human rights campaign of all times.
Much of the material used in REFUSENIK is unique and exclusive to this film. Interviews with key leaders in the movement are some of the first ever to be recorded. Many of the photographs and covert film footage – some of it smuggled out of the Soviet Union – have never been seen before by a large audience, and help make REFUSENIK a unique portrait of this amazing story. Special guest, Shirley Goldstein, a Jewish activist from Omaha, Nebraska, smuggled film containing lists of dissidents from the USSR to be shared with the American public. Shirley is a friend of director Laura Bialis and suggested to her that a film needed to be made documenting the historic rescue of Soviet Jewry.
Additional information about this film and director Laura Bialis available at http://refusenikmovie.com.
**Events require an RSVP as seating is limited due to fire code restrictions. Attending an event without an RSVP may require waiting until all those who have RSVP'd are seated or being turned away if the room has reached capacity. **