Los Angeles, CA — A number of prominent, international organizations have made statements supporting the production “Land of the Angels,” a film depicting the termination of Salonica, Greece’s Sephardic Jewish population and the Sonderkommando uprising at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Production on the film, produced by Metaphor Entertainment LLC, is set to begin filming in Spring 2011 in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Among the organizations that sent letters of support are the American Jewish Committee and the USC Shoah Foundation Institute. “The story of this onetime center of Sephardic Jewish life as well as the heroic episode of Greek Jewish concentration camp inmates to lead a genuine revolt at Auschwitz deserves to be told to a wide, international audience. We commend the plans of Dimitri Vorris to direct the film, ‘Land of the Angels,’ which will do just this,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, Director of International Jewish Affairs at the American Jewish Committee.
Said Ari C. Zev, Director of Administration at the USC Shoah Foundation Institute, “the USC Shoah Foundation Institute strongly supports the concept and goals of the film project ‘Land of the Angels,’ which will tell the story of the Salonican Jewish community, as well as the general Greek Jewish community, and the tragedy of the devastating loss of the community during the Holocaust.”
The USC Shoah Foundation Institute has an archive of nearly 52,000 video testimonies of Holocaust survivors and other witnesses, from 56 countries and in 32 languages.
The “Land of the Angels” filmmakers are planning to utilize the Institute’s vast archive of video testimony while conducting research for the film.
“The existence of Shoah Foundation Institute’s video archives is assisting us tremendously to make a better film,” said producer-director Dimitri Vorris.
Other organizations supporting the film include Central Board of Jewish Communities of Greece, Jewish Greek Heritage Society of Southern California, American Hellenic Council of California and others.