Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire

Synopsis

With unique access to Elie Wiesel’s family and personal archives, Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire will seek to understand the known and unknown Elie Wiesel – his passions, his conflicts and his legacy. Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire will ask: What drove Elie Wiesel throughout his life to be such a powerful voice for human rights? What were the dilemmas he struggled with? How can the lessons he drew from the Holocaust be applied to today’s hostile world, where authoritarian leaders threaten to destroy fragile societies and where memory of the Holocaust has faded?  Our film traces Elie Wiesel’s journey from the parochial to the universal. He was wrenched from the loving Jewish world in which he was raised – which was utterly annihilated – to the world stage in search of universal perspectives. Elie Wiesel called himself a simple storyteller from Sighet, Romania, a man who struggled with a God who had seemingly betrayed him and his people – if not all humanity. He did not feel bound by either/or options. He insisted that open-ended questions and inquiry are far more important than answers.

About the Director

Oren Rudavsky is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and several National Endowment for the Humanities and National Endowment for the Arts grants. Rudavsky produced, directed and co-wrote the NEH funded American Masters documentary: Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People which was nominated for a Critics Choice award. His film Colliding Dreams co-directed with Joseph Dorman, and The Ruins of Lifta co-directed with Menachem Daum, were released theatrically in 2016. Colliding Dreams was broadcast on PBS in May 2018. His NEH funded film A Life Apart was short-listed for the Academy Awards and broadcast on PBS and is being re-released by Menemsha Films and his ITVS funded film, Hiding and Seeking, was nominated for an Independent Spirit award and was chosen for the PBS POV series. Both were co- directed with Menachem Daum. Rudavsky was Producer/Writer of the two-part series Time for School for the PBS series Wide Angle. In 2006, Oren completed The Treatment, his fiction feature as starring Chris Eigeman, Ian Holm and Famke Janssen. The film was awarded First Prize in the Made in New York category of the Tribeca International Film Festival.  

Festivals, Screenings, & Awards

Hamptons International Film Festival