Diary from the Ashes

FAIN: TD-269722-20

Headfirst Arts & Media, Inc. (El Cerrito, CA 94530-2038)
Yoav Potash (Project Director: August 2019 to present)

Development of a ninety-minute documentary film on the diary of Rywka Lipszyc, which records her experience as a Jewish girl in the Lodz ghetto during the Third Reich.

“Diary from the Ashes” is a 90-minute television documentary that reveals the biography and writing of Rywka Lipszyc, an intensely imaginative and intelligent 14-year-old girl whose diary was found in the rubble of an Auschwitz crematorium in 1945. The diary remained unread—and her identity, story, and fate unknown—for the next seven decades. The film will contextualize Rywka’s story through a variety of humanities disciplines—history, literature and journalism, feminist theory, Jewish studies, theology, and philosophy—which correspond to different facets of her diary. Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced “Rivka Lipshitz”) recorded her innermost thoughts while the Third Reich directly oppressed her through forced labor, starvation, and the murder of her family. “Diary from the Ashes” will bring to life the talent and voice of this irrepressible young woman, who used her imagination to cope with the unimaginable.

Media Coverage

National Endowment for the Humanities Announces New Grants (Media Coverage)
Author(s): Jennifer Schuessler
Publication: The New York Times
Date: 4/7/2020
Abstract: The agency, which recently received $75 million as part of the coronavirus stimulus package, announces new funding for 224 projects across the country.
URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/07/arts/national-endowment-for-the-humanities-grants.html

Associated Products

Diary from the Ashes (Script)
Title: Diary from the Ashes
Writer: Yoav Potash
Director: Yoav Potash
Producer: Yoav Potash
Abstract: Script for a 90-minute television documentary, “Diary from the Ashes,” the first in-depth exploration of the life and diary of Rywka Lipszyc, an intensely imaginative and intelligent 14-year-old girl whose diary was found in the rubble of an Auschwitz crematorium in 1945. The diary remained unread — and her identity, story, and fate unknown — for the next seven decades. Rywka Lipszyc (pronounced “Rivka Lipshitz”) recorded her innermost thoughts while the Third Reich directly oppressed her through forced labor, starvation, and the murder of her family, all while planning the complete annihilation of Rywka and her people. “Diary from the Ashes” will bring to life the talent and voice of this irrepressible young woman, who wrote from the precipice of genocide — and who used her imagination to cope with the unimaginable.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: http://diaryfromtheashes.com/
Primary URL Description: Official website of the work-in-progress film. This website will be overhauled and updated before the film's release.

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