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

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.  

Artistic Statement

Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire is a natural progression of my work, creating documentaries that explore the past through personal and family stories. In my twenties after my mother’s untimely death, I visited Poland, her homeland, to produce Spark Among the Ashes, a film about an American boy who traveled to Krakow at the request of a Polish Jewish survivor who hadn’t witnessed a Bar Mitzvah in many years. I initially connected with the Wiesel family after they saw my film, Hiding and Seeking: Faith and Tolerance after the Holocaust. I co-directed the film as well as A Life Apart: Hasidism in America. Most recently I produced the documentary: Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People, which was nominated for a Critics Choice Award. Soul on Fire will bring together experience working on historical documentaries, films about major public figures and intimate family stories. It will be a personal and intimate portrait of a very public figure.

Festivals, Screenings, & Awards

Spokane JFF – Audience Award for Best Feature Film

Moscow Jewish Film Festival – Best Documentary

Rochester JFF – Audience Award for Best Documentary

YAD VASHEM – DOC AVIV Award for Holocaust Related Film

Pittsburgh JFF – Audience Award for Best Documentary

Miami Jewish Film Festival – DOC AVIV Torchbearer Jury Prize

Hamptons International Film Festival

New York Jewish Film Festival