Watch the film from home: Sunday, January 24 – Tuesday, January 26.
Join Zoom discussion: January 27, 2020 | 6pm
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day, OJMCHE, the Never Again Coalition, and The Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project at Portland State University present Trezoros: The Lost Jews of Kastoria along with a panel discussion with the film’s director, producer, and film consultants. Using never-before-seen pre-war archival footage and first-person testimonies, Trezoros: The Lost Jews of Kastoria chronicles the Jewish life and culture of Kastoria, a picturesque lakeside village in the mountains of Northwestern Greece, near the Albania border. Here, Jews and Greek Orthodox Christians lived together in harmony for more than two millennia until World War II, when this long and rich history would be wiped out in the blink of an eye.
Trezoros (the Ladino/Judeo-Spanish term of endearment meaning “Treasures”) takes us from the joyful innocence of the pre-war years through the heartbreaking struggles of the Holocaust, to a unique place in time and history of a Greek Jewish culture lost forever. The follow-up Zoom conversation is with Larry Confino, Director/Producer; Lawrence Russo, Director; Dr. Joe Halio who served on the film as a consultant on Sephardic history; and Andrea Grass, who provided important archival photos and film to the project through her family.
The link to the screening will be sent out on January 24 to those that have registered.
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We are grateful for your participation and encourage you to consider supporting our virtual programs.
Larry Confino, Director/Producer
Larry Confino is the Founder of Media Sector, Inc. and Executive Director of ImageRescue, Inc. Mr. Confino is a 30-year production industry veteran as Producer and Director of a wide variety of documentary, television, and home video projects around the world. He is currently in late-stage post-production on “Psychedelicized: The Electric Circus Story” about a 1960s era multimedia nightclub in New York City. He is also currently in production on “Clean” (working title) a feature-length documentary about clean energy and sustainability. His long-form documentary work includes producing and directing “Sound Or Silence”, a Discovery Health Channel feature about the controversy surrounding cochlear implants, and “Racing Roman”, the story of amputee Mike Roman who dreams of becoming a professional racecar driver. As Producer, his work includes Disney/Buena Vista’s “Pinocchio: The Making of A Masterpiece”, a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of one of the greatest animated films of all time, and as Co-Producer, “Shootdown”, a documentary of the little known story of US civilian aircraft, shot down by the Cuban Air Force over international waters.
Mr. Confino produced behind-the-scenes programs for film and cable TV networks and studios including HBO, Samuel Goldwyn Company, Showtime, and MGM. He also served as Supervising Producer for Non-Fiction Films/Winstar on a variety of documentary TV series and specials produced for the Discovery Channel, the History Channel, and A&E including “Gunfighters of the West”, “Warrior Tradition,” “Out of the Blue”, “The Great Ships,” and “Choosing Sides: I Remember Vietnam.”
In addition to his documentary and TV work, Mr. Confino has produced and directed a wide range of commercial projects for domestic and international corporate clients such as Spectrum, Chevron, Samsung, Canon, America Online, Boston Scientific, Advanced Bionics, Kaiser Permanente, Baruch College, Assurant, Affinitiv, APM Terminals, Mission Essential, and Edwards. Further expanding his repertoire to the non-profit sector, he also produced a variety of projects for organizations including Ride 2 Recovery, Sepsis Alliance, Alfred Mann Foundation, Lower Eastside Tenement Museum, AMIT, and Twin Cities Public Television. He is a graduate of the NYU Tisch School of the Arts – Film, and Television, and resides in New Jersey with his wife and 2 children.
Lawrence Russo, Director
Lawrence Russo graduated from New York University Film & Business Schools in 1986. He worked at Aaron Russo Entertainment (Producer of “Trading Places”, “The Rose & Teachers”) until 1990, and in 1991, at New Line Cinema Distribution when he met Bob Gosse, Whitney Ransick, Chris Walsh and Larry Meistrich. They, along with other filmmakers, founded the original Shooting Gallery production studio in downtown New York. While at the Shooting Gallery, Lawrence produced the forerunner of Shortcuts, called “ShortTV”, also featuring a collection of short films and their directors. In 1994, Mr. Russo left the Shooting Gallery and, along with other projects, worked to bring “Shortcuts” to fruition. During this time, he also served as a program supervisor at the Asbury Short Film Festival, a panelist at the Toronto Short Film Festival, a selection committee member of the Shorts International Film Festival, a selection committee member of the Shorts International Film Festival (at Sony Lincoln Center Theatres), a judge at New York’s Caroline’s “Funny Shorts” Festival hosted by Jeffrey Ross and Bill Blympton, as well as acting as a judge at the First Annual Woodstock Film Festival in upstate New York.