Our Story

I would like to introduce and invite you all to be a part of the independent production of a feature documentary about Nobel Prize-winning American Jewish writer, born in Poland, Isaac Bashevis Singer.

 

The film deeply explores human emotions, human instincts and human needs such as love, passion of sex, homosexuality, jealousy and desire, sense of existence, incest and superstitions such as  Jewish dybbuk or Jewish exorcism.

 

My name is Daniel Strehlau and I am a producer, director, editor and author of the screenplay for this production. I made about 60% of it: I did interviews, the shooting of narrative sequences with actors and I located necessary archives. About 40% of the film, which is mostly the archival material,  is still not ready.

 

The documentary is composed of  free adaptations of the autobiographical parts of Singers famous books (Magician of Lublin, Satan in Goray and more), interviews with characters of his books (acted by professional actors), meetings with real commentators, being such distinguished persons as Paul Mazursky, the famous Hollywood director, Janet Hadda (psychologist), Israel Zamir (Singers son in Israel), Richard Burgin (author of the book Conversations with I.B. Singer) and more. All sequences are intertwined with unique archival footage.

 

The project is in English, but small parts of it will appear in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew. The final format is Full HD and 35mm print. The material includes sequences on 16 mm & Super 8 mm prints. The locations were we shot are: the USA: New York City (NY), St. Louis (MI), Miami (FL) and Los Angeles (CA); Poland: Warsaw, the Kampinos forest, Lublin, Goraj, Bilgoraj and Frampol; Israel: Tel Aviv and Haifa.

 

What We Need & The Impact

To complete the movie, we have to buy rights for the archival footage, which should appear in the movie in the number of 129. The archival footage, i.e. stills, is an integral part of the story told in the movie. The basic archival materials, about 65 stills, are stored in one of the state archive collections in Texas, USA. The total price to clear the rights: worldwide for movie theaters, home video and the Internet is about 57500 USD. This amount includes all rights and duplication processes in the archives  lab.

The remaining 64 stills are located in private collections, museums in NYC, USA, Israel and Poland and the total price for the rights is about 29 000 USD.

 

The money you donate on IndieGoGo  will be used to cover the basic archival materials and if we raise more than 57500 USD we will cover the rest of important stills.

 

The basic archival materials are important for our feature documentary, because they come from private albums of Mr. and Mrs. Singer and present their whole life.

 

We would like to distribute our production among independent movie theatres in large cities of the USA and show the film at various international film festivals, which is why it is extremely important to clear the rights for movie theater screenings. To promote our movie we would like to use the Internet stream and therefore we also need to clear the rights for new media and home video.

 

The DVD edition contains a bonus material : b.m. Roger Straus (Singers publisher), b.m. Amram Novak - both were recorded in 2000, Shmuel Atzmon, the founder of the Yiddish theater in Tel Aviv, born in Singer`s city Bilgoraj, Poland (interviewed in May 2007 in Israel), Irvin Kershner (EMPIRE STRIKES BACK), Hollywood director and a friend of IB Singer and more.

 

       The trailer of BASHEVIS movie in HD is available here: wwww.bashevis.net in Video Gallery

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact us: office@bashevis.net

 

What You Get

$ 50  gets thanks on the www.bashevis.net

$100  gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray

$200   gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster

$500  gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster and special thanks in the credits

$1000  gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster and an Associate Producer credit

$5000  gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster and an Associate Producer credit and one seat in the VIP section at the world premiere of the movie in New York City and Los Angeles

$10000  gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster and an Associate Producer credit and two seats in the VIP section at the world premiere of the movie in New York City and Los Angeles

$20000 and up gets you a DVD/Blu-Ray and a personalized poster and an Executive Producer credit and four seats in the VIP section at the world premiere of the movie in New York City and Los Angeles

 

 

About me and the crew:

I was born in Warsaw, Poland, where I grew up surrounded by Jewish, Polish and American culture and influences. This was the place, where I discovered the world of Isaac Bashevis Singer.

I live in Brooklyn, New York. As an independent filmmaker, I made two award-winning documentaries: THE JEWS OF WARSAW Judah Magnes Museum, Berkeley California; CHANUKKAH, A DOUBLE TIME European International documentary Film Festival, Lublin, Poland, and three narrative shorts (THE WINDOWS, 12 min; MISUNDERSTANDINGS, 7 min; and NOT ENOUGH, 30 min) more info on www.danielstrehlau.com

15 min reel of Daniel Strehlau`s six movies is available on: www.danielstrehlau.com

 

The camera people: Guy Livneh, Tal Unreich are based in Los Angeles, but their origins are from Israel.

We would like to use classic music, classic Jewish Music, Jazz music and experimental music as a soundtrack for the film.

 

About the project and its history:

I was possible to create the project in its current status thanks to the dedication of my friends and me as well as thanks to a grant from the Polish Film Institute (Poland), which covered the costs of the interviews and sequences in different locations.

The project is based on all my research, which I did for the film in the years 2000 - 2011. The research included research in libraries and institutions in the USA, Poland, Israel and Germany, visiting many locations such as Singers homes in Poland and in the USA in New York and Miami and  archives in various places (the USA, Israel, Europe) as well as interviews with his contemporaries.

 

What happens if you dont reach your funding goal?

If this project fails to meet its $57,500 minimum funding goal we will be unable to proceed with the production at this time, but we will continue with the stills we bought to present more samples of the movie and to raise all necessary funds to cover the costs of the archival materials.