This article needs additional citations for verification .(July 2018) |
Seeds of Destiny | |
---|---|
Directed by | David Miller |
Written by |
|
Narrated by | Ralph Bellamy |
Edited by | Gene Fowler Jr. |
Production company | |
Distributed by | United States Department of War |
Release date |
|
Running time | 20 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $200,000,000+[ citation needed ] |
Seeds of Destiny is a 1946 short propaganda film about the despairing situation faced by millions of children in the wake of the Holocaust who were homeless, parentless, orphaned, and in poor health. The film was produced by the Defense Department of The U.S. Army War Department to keep the world's attention focused on the suffering of displaced and orphaned refugee children in transit and displaced persons camps in Europe and to champion the work of UNRRA. It was the winner of the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Subject in 1946. [2] It was directed by accomplished short film — and later feature film — director David Miller.
In countries throughout Europe, as soon as an area had been liberated by the armed forces of the United Nations or as a consequence of retreat of the enemy, the U.S. Army Signal Corps filmed dramatic images of neglected and injured children in displaced persons' camps, refugee camps or wandering the streets in the rubble of bombed out cities.
By 1944, the United States had joined with other nations as a signatory with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). The film was premiered before the UNRRA in 1946, and the revenue raised from its distribution was pledged to relieve suffering of the civilians affected by the war, and to assist in their repatriation.
Gene Fowler Jr. is sometimes incorrectly attributed to this film as Director; occasionally he is listed as Creator. He was the Creative Film Editor of this film. The film Director was David Miller. David Miller was also the Screenplay Author. Art Arthur, a well known movie script writer is also listed by the National Archives as a Screenplay Author.
Gene Fowler Jr. became a prolific film and television professional, editing and directing in over a hundred major Hollywood film and television productions. He won four Emmys, an Academy Award (and several nominations), and a Golden Globe during the 1950s through the 1970s. He worked with many well known actors, including Henry Fonda, Clint Eastwood, Michael Landon, and William Holden. Gene Fowler Jr. died in 1998.
David Miller also directed major Hollywood films, from 1941 to 1976.
The film was edited and produced by the Signal Corps Photographic Center (SCPC) in Astoria, New York, at a military facility converted from thirteen buildings originally owned by Paramount Pictures Company, including a sound stage and a complete studio originally built in the 1930s. It was released as part of the Army–Navy Screen Magazine.
Seeds of Destiny returned more than $200 million for war relief, making it one of the highest grossing films in motion picture history, and one of the most important historical Academy Award winning films, though few Americans have ever heard of it.[ citation needed ]
The Oscar Golden Statue for this film is located at the National Museum of the United States Army, Fort Belvoir, VA. (The Signal Corps Photographic Unit won a second Oscar in 1948 for the film Toward Independence, and a nomination for the film Operation Blue Jay. Frank Capra also won an Academy Award for Best Director while in the Signal Corps, but considered that an individual award).
The Academy Film Archive preserved Seeds of Destiny in 2005. [3]
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part of the United Nations in 1945. Its purpose was to "plan, co-ordinate, administer or arrange for the administration of measures for the relief of victims of war in any area under the control of any of the United Nations through the provision of food, fuel, clothing, shelter and other basic necessities, medical and other essential services". Its staff of civil servants included 12,000 people, with headquarters in New York. Funding came from many nations, and totalled $3.7 billion, of which the United States contributed $2.7 billion; Britain, $625 million; and Canada, $139 million.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), often pronounced AM-pass; also known as simply the Academy or the Motion Picture Academy) is a professional honorary organization in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academy's corporate management and general policies are overseen by a board of governors, which includes representatives from each of the craft branches.
George Cooper Stevens was an American film director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer. He received two Academy Awards and the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award in 1953.
The Search is a 1948 American film directed by Fred Zinnemann that tells the story of a young Auschwitz survivor and his mother who search for each other across post-World War II Europe. It stars Montgomery Clift, Ivan Jandl, Jarmila Novotná and Aline MacMahon.
Albert Horton Foote Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter. He received Academy Awards for his screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, which was adapted from the 1960 novel of the same name by Harper Lee, and his original screenplay for the film Tender Mercies (1983). He was also known for his notable live television dramas produced during the Golden Age of Television.
Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Edgworth Morgan, was a senior officer of the British Army who fought in both world wars. He is best known as the chief of staff to the Supreme Allied Commander (COSSAC), the original planner of Operation Overlord.
Displaced persons camps in post–World War II Europe were established in Germany, Austria, and Italy, primarily for refugees from Eastern Europe and for the former inmates of the Nazi German concentration camps. A "displaced persons camp" is a temporary facility for displaced persons, whether refugees or internally displaced persons. Two years after the end of World War II in Europe, some 850,000 people lived in displaced persons camps across Europe, among them Armenians, Czechoslovaks, Estonians, Greeks, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanians, Yugoslavs, Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Kalmyks, and Belarusians.
Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp was a displaced persons (DP) camp for refugees after World War II, in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. It was in operation from the summer of 1945 until September 1950. For a time, Belsen DP camp was the largest Jewish DP camp in Germany and the only one in the British occupation zone with an exclusively Jewish population. The camp was under British authority and overseen by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) with camp directors that included Simon Bloomberg. Today, the camp is a Bundeswehr barracks, having been a British Army base until 2015.
Sh'erit ha-Pletah is a Hebrew term for Ashkenazi Holocaust survivors living in Displaced Persons (DP) camps, and the organisations they created to act on their behalf with the Allied authorities. These were active between 27 May 1945 and 1950–51, when the last DP camps closed.
The 32nd Academy Awards ceremony was held on April 4, 1960, at the RKO Pantages Theatre, to honor the films of 1959.
Ib Jørgen Melchior was a Danish-American novelist, short-story writer, film producer, film director, and screenwriter of low-budget American science fiction movies, most of them released by American International Pictures.
Jesse Louis Lasky Jr. was an American screenwriter, novelist, playwright and poet.
The 18th Academy Awards were held on March 7, 1946, at Grauman's Chinese Theatre to honor the films of 1945. Being the first Oscars after the end of World War II, the ceremony returned to the glamour of the prewar years; notably, the plaster statuettes that had been used during the war were replaced by bronze statuettes with gold plating and an elevated base.
The 19th Academy Awards were held on March 13, 1947, honoring the films of 1946. The top awards portion of the ceremony was hosted by Jack Benny.
Robert Clifford Jones was an American film editor, screenwriter, and educator. He received an Academy Award for the screenplay of the film Coming Home (1978). As an editor, Jones had notable collaborations with the directors Arthur Hiller and Hal Ashby. Jones was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), and Bound for Glory (1976).
Daniel Taradash was an American screenwriter.
Toward Independence is a 1948 American short documentary film about the rehabilitation of veterans with spinal cord injuries. Army Surgeon General Raymond W. Bliss received the award. In 1949, it won an Oscar for Documentary Short Subject at 21st Academy Awards. The Academy Film Archive preserved Toward Independence in 2005.
Timothy Miller is an American filmmaker, animator, and visual effects artist. He made his feature-film directing debut with the superhero film Deadpool (2016). He then directed Terminator: Dark Fate (2019), the sixth installment in the Terminator franchise. He is the creator of the animated anthology series Love, Death & Robots (2019-present), for which he has won three Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Short Form Animated Program.
Simon Bloomberg (1894–1981) CBE, was a Jewish humanitarian known for his work to resettle the displaced persons of Europe after World War II. He was the UNRRA Director of the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp after World War II and European Director of the Jewish Relief Fund.