Writing About Historical Events - a Panel Discussion

Showings

AMC Loews New Brunswick A Sun, Nov 11, 2018 2:00 PM
Free event! Tickets available at the door. Program begins promptly at 2:00pm.

Description

Moshe Zonder, former head screenwriter for Fauda, and Professor Samuel Kassow, author of Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto, will discuss the challenges of developing historical and contemporary events for the television and movie screen. How does the need for narrative and characterization conflict with historical accuracy, if it does? How much license can a screenwriter take with facts? Who makes those choices: the screenwriter, the director, or the editor? The discussion will include three of the films in this year's festival: Who Will Write Our History?, Rescue Bus 300, and An Israeli Love Story.

 

Biographies:

 

Moshe Zonder was the head writer for Fauda, the enormously successful television series broadcast in Israel. In 2016, Fauda became the first Israeli series to be released as a Netflix Original. He has written many screenplays for film and television, including the documentary film Sabena Hijacking shown in the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival in 2016.
Zonder began his career as an investigative journalist working at Maariv, one of Israel’s leading Hebrew-language daily newspapers. While at Rutgers in Fall 2018, Zonder is teaching “Screenwriting for Television” in the Creative Writing Program and is participating in outreach activities of the Bildner Center including the Rutgers Jewish Film Festival. The Schusterman Visiting Israeli Artist Program is sponsored by The Israel Institute.


Dr. Samuel Kassow, Charles H. Northam Professor of History at Trinity College, has won numerous awards and been elected a Fellow of the American Academy for Jewish Research. Kassow has been recognized as one of the world’s leading scholars on the Holocaust and more specifically, the fate of Jews in Poland. He lectures widely and helped create an exhibit for the Museum of History of Polish Jews located at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto. Kassow served as a consultant on the film.

Additional Information

A special festival event featuring: Moshe Zonder, Schusterman Visiting Israeli Artist and Dr. Samuel Kassow, Trinity College.