Nina & Irena | |
---|---|
Directed by | Daniel Lombroso |
Produced by | Devon Blackwell |
Starring |
|
Cinematography | Vittoria Campaner |
Edited by | David P. Zucker |
Music by | Gil Talmi |
Distributed by | |
Release date |
|
Running time | 22 minutes |
Country |
|
Language | English |
Nina & Irena is a 2023 American short documentary film directed by Daniel Lombroso. [1] [2] It was produced by Devon Blackwell for The New Yorker and executive produced by Errol Morris. [3]
The film was Shortlisted for the 96th Academy Awards in the Documentary Short Film category. [4]
Holocaust survivor Nina Gottlieb, who is getting close to turning 90, tells her grandson (Daniel Lombroso) the tragic story of her sister Irena going missing during the Holocaust. After emigrating to the United States in 1951, Nina never mentioned the fact that she had lost 25 members of her extended family. [5]
The film had its world premiere at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival on March 1, 2023, and also made its Los Angeles premiere on November 1, 2023, at the Museum of Tolerance. [6] [7] It was also screened at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, Brooklyn Film Festival, Mountainfilm Festival, Nantucket Film Festival and the Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival, among others. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
The film was publicly released on November 15, 2023, by The New Yorker as part of The New Yorker Documentary. [13] The film is available for students worldwide, with a free educational study guide. [14]
David Sugarman of the Tablet wrote: "Lombroso’s success at presenting his grandmother this way—as more than an object of history—is one of the major accomplishments of the film." [15] Eric Althoff of Screen Comment called it an "It’s another extraordinary effort from this most talented of filmmakers." [16] Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, who said of the film, "It's the absence of tears that gives it such extraordinary poignancy." [5]
Year | Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2023 | Brooklyn Film Festival | Spirit Award | Daniel Lombroso | Won | [17] |
Mountainfilm Festival | Best Short Film | Won | [18] | ||
Sonoma International Film Festival | Best Short Film | Won | [19] | ||
Montclair Film Festival | Documentary Shorts Competition | Nominated | [20] | ||
National Magazine Awards | Best Video | Nominated | [21] | ||
Errol Mark Morris is an American film director known for documentaries that interrogate the epistemology of their subjects, and the invention of the Interrotron. In 2003, his The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. His film The Thin Blue Line placed fifth on a Sight & Sound poll of the greatest documentaries ever made. Morris is known for making films about unusual subjects; Fast, Cheap & Out of Control interweaves the stories of an animal trainer, a topiary gardener, a robot scientist, and a naked mole-rat specialist.
Mountainfilm is a documentary film festival that showcases nonfiction stories about environmental, cultural, climbing, political and social justice issues in Telluride, Colorado. It has been held every Memorial Day weekend since 1979.
Julian Rubinstein December 27, 1968 is an American journalist, documentary filmmaker and educator. He is best known for his longform magazine journalism and his non-fiction books, Ballad of the Whiskey Robber, which chronicles the life of one of the world's most popular living folk heroes and The Holly: Five Bullets, One Gun and the Struggle to Save an American Neighborhood, a multi-generational story of activism and gang violence in a gentrifying northeast Denver community. While reporting The Holly, he began directing and producing THE HOLLY, a feature length documentary that captures significant problems in a federal anti-gang effort and the targeted takedown of an activist.
Spark Media is an American independent multimedia and documentary production house based in Washington, D.C., United States.
Vessel is a 2014 multi-national documentary film written and directed by Diana Whitten as her debut film, focusing on the work of Women on Waves, a Dutch pro-choice organization founded by the Dutch physician Rebecca Gomperts in 1999. The film's world premiere took place at SXSW in Texas on March 9, 2014. The film has been distributed by Filmbuff since 2015.
3 Generations is a non-profit documentary film production company based in New York City.
Lisa Biagiotti is a filmmaker and journalist based in Los Angeles. She is the director and on-camera correspondent of On the Streets, a Los Angeles Times 12-part series and 72-minute feature documentary on homelessness in Southern California. She directed and produced deepsouth, an independent documentary about poverty, HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues in the rural American South. Biagiotti is a Fulbright Scholar and a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She is of Italian descent from her father and Hakka Chinese Jamaican descent from her mother.
Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.
Minding the Gap is a 2018 documentary film directed by Bing Liu and produced by Liu and Diane Moy Quon through Kartemquin Films. It chronicles the lives and friendships of three young men growing up in Rockford, Illinois, united by their love of skateboarding. The film received critical acclaim, won the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for Breakthrough Filmmaking at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.
Mona Nicoară is a Romanian film director and producer. She is best known for her work on the documentary films Our School and The Distance Between Me and Me.
Allison Otto is an Emmy-winning American documentary film director. She is best known for her work on The Thief Collector,The Love Bugs, and Keeper of the Mountains.
Hannah Olson is an American documentary film director and producer. She is best known for her work on the HBO documentaries, Baby God, The Last Cruise, and Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God.
Alexander Glustrom is an American film director and cinematographer. He has directed award winning films and shot projects for HBO, CNN, New York Times, A&E, Vice, Great Big Story, and Democracy Now. He currently works as a cinematographer on commercials, films and tv shows.
Enid Zentelis is an American writer, filmmaker, and podcaster. She is best known for directing features Evergreen and Bottled Up and for her podcast, How My Grandmother Won WWII.
Axel Danielson is a Swedish film director and producer.
Brian Golden Davis is an American filmmaker and television director. He is best known for his documentary The Million Dollar Duck and the Netflix series We Are The Champions.
Brooke Sebold is an American nonbinary filmmaker. They are known most for their work as co-director of the documentary film Red Without Blue (2006), and as co-producer and editor of the documentary feature Framing Agnes (2022).
Morrisa Maltz is an American filmmaker and artist. She is best known for writing and directing the films The Unknown Country (2022) and Jazzy (2024).
Daniel Lombroso is an American documentary filmmaker and journalist. He is known for embedding inside of extremist groups to capture their influence on modern politics. His films White Noise, American Scar, and Nina & Irena have received critical acclaim.
Nick August-Perna is an American documentary filmmaker.