Join us for a screening of the award winning film "Four Winters". This film has roots tied to our own community as it follows the relatives of local community member, Ann Sussman. After the screening we will be joined via Zoom by co-producer Lee Feldscher for a brief Q&A.
We are grateful to our cosponsors for helping bring this film to Champaign-Urbana: Illini Hillel, Sinai Temple, and the Spurlock Museum: we recognize "The Spurlock Museum Judaica Fund" as a funding source.
“All I owned was my camera, a leopard coat, and a grenade in case of capture...the pillow was the rifle, the walls were the trees and the sky was the roof,” says partisan Faye Schulman.
Over 25,000 Jewish partisans, fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped Nazi slaughter, transforming from young innocents to courageous resistance fighters. Shattering the myth of Jewish passivity, these last surviving partisans tell their stories of resistance in FOUR WINTERS, revealing a stunning narrative of heroism and resilience.
NEW YORK TIMES – Nicholas Rapold
“…AN ENDURING WARNING AMID TODAY’S GLOBAL STRUGGLE WITH AUTHORITARIAN FORCES.”
JEFFREY LYONS – Film Critic
“EASILY ONE OF THE BEST FILMS OF THE YEAR”
TABLET MAGAZINE – Marjorie Ingall
"A MUST-SEE HOLOCAUST MOVIE (NO, REALLY)...‘FOUR WINTERS’ is a documentary with suspense, humor, and zero sentimentality…"
Ms. MAGAZINE – Carrie Baker
"…FROM EMPATHY TO AWE… poignant, deeply reflective, and sometimes shockingly funny…"
Bio of Co-Producer Lee Feldscher
Lee Feldscher, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania holds BA degrees in Astronomy, Physics and Natural Science. Lee worked as a physicist at Penn for years focusing his research in particle physics, and was on the teams of two groundbreaking experiments; discovering the Z particle, and neutrinos from a source outside of our solar system. Both experiments received Nobel prizes. Lee has built advanced telescopes on mountain tops in Maui and the Canary Islands, He also worked on filming teams that covered Space Shuttle launches at NASA’s Kennedy Center in Florida, with the Jewish Partisans director Julia Mintz. Lee has been involved with the Jewish Partisans film from its earliest conception. As one of the films producers Lee has contributed on technical and computer workflow, helped manage quarterly screenings and fundraising events and other outreach initiatives. He also traveled to the forests in Eastern Europe where the Jewish Partisans fought, filming the remains of their Semblance’s (hand dug underground bunkers), and sites of the Partisans missions. He has also spent time combing through the libraries and archives in Belarus, Lithuania and Poland in search of footage, photographs and maps for inclusion in the film. Lee previously ran the IT departments of two major post production film studios in NYC, The Tapehouse Editorial companies and Broadway Video. In those roles Lee worked supporting the editors and colorists on many films and TV shows, wrote custom code to support the editing studios, and played a central role in sub-titling the Miramax Classic films. After Years in NYC Lee opened his own company based in Massachusetts, Northampton IT, a computer consulting firm.