Gizmo’s second feature film, GITEL, was filmed in Russia and Lithuania. It was shot in St Petersburg, Vilnius, Kaunas and Druskininkai. The lead role is taken by Marija Korenkaite, who also took a leading role in Gizmo’s first feature ‘Letters to Sofija’. She plays a Holocaust survivor whose family were victims of the mass murder that took place at the Ninth Fort Extermination Camp, Kaunas, in 1941.
“When I grow up and get to be twenty, I’ll travel and see this world of plenty. In a bird with an engine I will sit myself down, take off and fly into space, tar above the ground. I’ll fly, I’ll cruise and soar up hig, above a world so lovely, into the sky … And so, delighted by all the world’s charms, Into the heavens I will take off and not have a bother. The cloud is my sister, the wind is my brother.”
Avramek Kopelowicz, murdered in Auschwitz at age 14· From To Bear Witness (Yad Vashem, 2005)
GITEL has recently been selected for the following festivals:
FESTIVAL DES FILMS DU MONDE, Montreal, September 2015
PHILADELPHIA JEWISH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, November 2015
BOSTON JEWISH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, November 2015
