SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER

A revelation leaves a family shattered in new 
fi
 lm by Jeff Lipsky.
I

n Jeff Lipsky’
s new film about a 
Holocaust survivor, The Last, the 
only Jewish cast member, Rebecca 
Schull, portrays the character whose 
religious and political background 
and beliefs become an 
upending shock to her 
Jewish family.
Besides seeing the 
story unfold, local 
viewers can hear the 
backstory unfold as 
the filmmaker appears 
Aug. 2-4 at the Maple 
Theater in Bloomfield Township.
“I take themes like families in crisis 
and embroider them into patchworks 
that are even larger,” Lipsky says about 
the seven films he has directed, six 
also as writer, beyond his longtime 
work as a film distributor. 
For The Last, Lipsky combined fact 
with fiction to make the fiction seem 
plausible. 
“I literally infused into my fic-
tional family actual 
monsters (such as Dr. 
Carl Clauberg) who 
participated in the 
Holocaust,” Lipsky 
says. “They become 
vivid characters after 
only seeing them one 
time in a photograph 
[that is understood 
to have been taken at 
Auschwitz].” 
Lipsky, whose earli-
er films have included 
a mother-daughter 
drama and a hus-
band-wife drama based on his own 
failed marriage, started thinking 
about the plot for The Last after the 
wedding of his nephew to a woman 
who converted to Judaism, a situation 
which is the starting point for his cur-
rent independent movie.
“
After their wedding, I thought 
these are two great characters in 
search of a story,” Lipsky says. “My 
previous films were always about 

multiple generations of families, and 
they always featured very strong char-
acters. 
“I realized that if I made this couple 
part of a family and took them back 
one more generation than I usually 
did, we would be at the Holocaust. 
“With all the virulent anti-Semitism 
in the world, I said it was the perfect 
time for me to challenge my charac-
ter, myself as a writer-director and 
audiences by coming up with a story 
about a Holocaust survivor unlike any 
that had been told before.”
That’
s how the filmmaker came up 
with the character of Claire, and the 
plot built organically after that. Other 
cast members include Jill Durso, AJ 
Cedeño, Reed Birney and Julie Fain 
Lawrence.
When Lipsky has held his ques-
tion-and-answer sessions after pre-
vious showings, he has found that 
the movie evokes audience interest 
in delving further into the characters 
and coming up with their 
own theories about the 
people he has created.
After devising his sto-
ryline, Lipsky explains, he 
read about people with 
similarly shocking tales.
Lipsky, 65, who has 
been the founder of three 
film distribution compa-
nies, has worked on pro-
moting 250 films includ-
ing My Life as a Dog, 
Stranger Than Paradise 
and Sid & Nancy.
He has lived mostly 
in New York but currently is in Las 
Vegas as he writes his next feature 
film, which explores a family crisis 
that has to do with the #Me Too 
movement. He also plans to produce 
part of it in Nevada.
“I’
ve distributed a number of Israeli 
films and a number of American films 
dealing with Judaism,” he says. “Titles 
include Hester Street, Omar and The 
Pickle Recipe.” ■

fi
 lm
arts&life

Jill Durso and Rebecca 

Schull in The Last

Details
The Last will be shown 
Friday-Sunday, Aug. 2-4, 
at the Maple Theater in 
Bloomfield Township. 
The filmmaker will 
speak after screenings 
that begin at 11:45 
a.m., 3 p.m. and 6:15 
p.m. Tickets start at 
$6. (248) 750-1030. 
themapletheater.com.

PLAINVIEW PICTURES

Jeff Lipsky 

Holocaust Drama

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