September 17, 2001

Academy Award-Nominated Film On Holocaust in Hungary to Be Shown at Glen Rock Jewish Center

Fair Lawn Native Joan Stein is the Filmmaker

Mahwah —The Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey and The Glen Rock Jewish Center have announced that award-winning filmmaker and Fair Lawn native Joan Stein will show her film, One Day Crossing, at The Glen Rock Jewish Center, 682 Harristown Road in Glen Rock on Sunday evening, September 30 at 7 p.m. Admission is free and all are welcome.

Nominated for an Academy Award in the Live Action Short category, One Day Crossing tells the story of a young family living in Budapest during the last phase of World War II. At that time Hungarian Jews were terrorized not only by the "Nazi foreign villains" but also the "Arrow Cross"—Hungary"s indigenous Nazi movement. The 25-minute film movingly recreates the world and moral choices confronted by Teresa, a young woman who poses as a Christian to protect her family. It is shot on-location in Budapest with an international production team and Hungarian actors, the film is based on historically accurate details of the Holocaust experience in Hungary.

For Stein, a 1999 graduate of the MFA program at Columbia University"s Film Division, One Day Crossing was her master’s thesis and third film. She also directed Fault Line (1998) which received a directing award from Columbia University and Reap the Whirlwind - Women on the Road to Surviving (1995), a documentary about the Center for Women War Victims, Zagreb.

In addition to the Oscar nomination, One Day Crossing was also the winner of the Student Academy Award for Best Narrative Film and the Directors Guild of America’s Student Film Award. The film has been shown at numerous festivals here and in Europe. Her partner on the project was screenwriter Christina Lazaridi.

Stein has received other awards for her work including: Gold Medal - Student Academy Awards (2000); Best Woman Student Filmmaker Award - DGA (East coast); Best Film - Polo Ralph Lauren/Columbia University Film Festival; Best Student Director - the National Board of Review; and the Milos Forman Fund.

Founded in 1980, the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies is an independent, non-profit 501(c)(3) organization, located on the campus of Ramapo College. It encourages and assists persons of all ages in learning the history and lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides in the hope that through education such tragedies can be prevented from occurring again.

For more information, please contact Dr. Michael Riff, director of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Ramapo College of New Jersey, (201) 684-7409.