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A scene from The Whistle
Never Forget
MPI film students depict the Holocaust.
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14
February 14 • 2013
LINCOLN CENTER
Greenfield at 10 1 Mile
Hannah Posen
Special to the Jewish News
W
ith so many innovations
in technology, it is easy
to forget the past and get
caught up with all the new gadgets.
Amidst all the excitement about the
new technology though, two students
at the Motion Picture Institute (MPI)
in Troy have taken all the technology
at their fingertips to remember the
past instead of forging forward.
Students Jonathan
D'Ambrosio and
Estee Lipenholtz
have both directed
films about the
Holocaust, depicting
the very personal
struggles faced dur-
Estee
ing the war.
Lipenholtz
D'Ambrosio, 18,
directed The Whistle,
a short film set in 1940s Europe,
depicting the struggles of a Jewish girl
as she is torn from her family during
the deportation of her village.
Although not Jewish, D'Ambrosio
took this project to heart, and this film
was the product of many years of reflec-
tion. "In middle school and high school,
I think we spent about a day learning
about the Holocaust:' D'Ambrosio said.
"I was always upset that such a horrific
event in the history of the world only
needed a day of learning. So myself,
along with the lead actress in the film,
Julie Kline, set out to tell a story that
would visualize the horror that so many
families had to face during the war:'
MPI was the perfect place for
D'Ambrosio to tell this story, he said.
MPI gives its students the tools they
a
,,•
,
need to create films across genres and
to understand the different equipment
involved in creating moving films.
"I feel that when a film recreates
history," D'Ambrosio said, "it gives
the world a visual image, an angle on
an event that they may have never
seen before. I believe it's important to
show the reality of topics such as the
Holocaust so that the many families
and individuals who lost their lives are
never forgotten"
Lipenholtz, who grew up and lives
in Southfield, approached the subject
of the Holocaust from a very different
perspective, herself being the daughter
of a Lithuanian Holocaust survivor,
Gershon Lipenholtz. Her film, Shards
of Stained Glass, is a music-only film
(no dialogue) about the stained glass
collection of Hungarian Holocaust sur-
vivor Tom Fox, a close family friend of
Lipenholtz who has worked on his col-
lection for the last 40 years. He refuses
to sell any of his work, but its magnifi-
cence is captured by Lipenholtz's film,
which is available on YouTube.
Like D'Ambrosio, Lipenholtz has
gained many valuable skills since
beginning at MPI.
"The school has been an amazing
springboard to learning filmmaking,"
Lipenholtz said. "It is a hands-on trade
school for filmmaking, and the
students have access to film cameras
and professional lighting equipment:'
Both D'Ambrosio and Lipenholtz see
the importance in telling these stories
and hope to go on to make feature
films and documentaries. Their films
are important parts of the Holocaust
narrative and help ensure that we will
never forget the tragedies faced during
that time. ❑