Seven Blades of Grass

Synopsis

Seven Blades of Grass is a ground-breaking animation film that tells the true story of one of the most extraordinary events in history; the revolt and mass escape at the Treblinka extermination camp on August 2, 1943. Based on the memoir of survivor Samuel Willenberg, it follows the conception, planning, frustration and accomplishment of the armed uprising, as experienced by Samuel and his boyhood friend Alfred Boehm.

About the Director

Benjamin Ross graduated with a first-class degree in English Literature from St Catherine’s College Oxford in 1985. He was subsequently awarded a Harkness Fellowship from the Commonwealth Fund of New York to study at the graduate film program at Columbia University in New York, where he was awarded an MFA in 1992, graduating with a short film, My Little Eye, which was screened that year at the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Centre. Between 2004 and 2006 he returned to the Columbia University Graduate Film School as an Adjunct Professor teaching film directing.

His produced work as director and writer includes The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, which won the Best Director award at the Edinburgh Film Festival and the Sundance Grand Jury Award in 1995; Torte Bluma, which won best film at both Santa Barbara and Los Angeles Short Film Festivals in 2005; and the entire series one of The
Frankenstein Chronicles, a Netflix series for which he was also the series creator in 2015. As director only his work includes the 1999 feature film RKO 281 for HBO which won best TV Film at the Golden Globes in 2000 and was nominated for 14 Emmys including Best Director, winning two; and Poppy Shakespeare for Channel 4 in 2008, which won a Bafta Best Actress award for Anna Maxwell Martin.

He has written numerous screenplays, for production companies including Working Title Films, Channel 4 UK and Universal Films. The most recent of these, The Volunteer – based on the best-selling book by Jack Fairweather about WWII Polish resistance fighter Witold Pilecki
– is currently being produced as a major feature film by House Productions in the UK.

He is also currently developing as director, producer and writer Seven Blades of Grass, a feature film based on the memoir of Samuel Willenberg, participant in and survivor of the uprising in the Treblinka death camp during WWII; and two long running drama series, one
based on the events and personalities around the English Civil war, the other on the life of the historical Saint Paul.