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Hope amid horrors Thursday, July 19, 2007 BY LORI SENDER Special to NJ Jewish News As the Holocaust casts its shadow over the latest generation of young filmmakers, Joel Dunn, a 21-year-old student at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, has aimed his lens on the story of two youngsters discovering a bit of humanity against that era's backdrop of evil and hatred. Dunn, a Randolph resident and member of Morristown Jewish Center Beit Yisrael, has written, directed, and produced Escape from the Fire, a 13-minute film that takes place in 1943 Poland and follows two children — one fleeing the Nazis, the other an abusive father — who find each other and a measure of hope and trust amid the horrors. Shot over five days of intense filming at the Fosterfields Living Historical Farm in Morristown with a crew of 30 and a cast of six, Escape from the Fire is being submitted to over 80 international and domestic festivals, including the competitive Sundance, Hamptons International, and Telluride. On July 24 it will be shown to movie-making executives at Kodak's film@11, lunch@12 series in New York City — a monthly networking program geared to industry insiders — followed by a talk with the young filmmaker. Audience members, said Dunn, will also have "their first glatt-kosher catered lunch." One year elapsed between the writing of the script and shooting, explained Dunn, who will enter his senior year at Tisch this fall. The idea was first conceived in December 2005 as a four-page treatment for his screenwriting class; by May 2006, eight drafts later, he had fine-tuned it into a working screenplay. Casting the parts proved especially time-intensive and demanding — at seven casting calls, Dunn saw close to 20 children before deciding on two seasoned regional theater actors — Allison Sparrow and Jordan Goldberg — for the lead roles. (Allison can be seen in the upcoming movie Fred Claus starring Vince Vaughn.) For the casting of the Nazi soldiers, Dunn posted character descriptions on Craigslist's on-line film casting service. Surprisingly, funding for the film may have been the smoothest part of the process. "I wanted to go outside the normal student-film, parent-funding box," said Dunn in a phone interview with NJJN. After drawing up a 20-page prospectus, he sent out a blind mailing to 30 industry people, mostly well-known producers and directors. "I got a lot of ‘nice' rejection letters," said Dunn. Then Steven Spielberg's longtime producer Kathleen Kennedy (E.T.: The Extra- Terrestrial, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Schindler's List) and actor Ben Stiller sent contributions. Around a dozen other investors — family members, friends, and the Jewish community — also gave financial backing, raising the more than $35,000 needed to create the project. The son of Laura and Larry Dunn grew up in a Conservative observant household. Although no one in his family experienced the Holocaust directly, Joel Dunn cited his visit to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington at age nine as the seminal event from which his deep Jewish spirituality would emerge. At 18, those religious leanings became even stronger as he traveled with the USY Pilgrimage program, visiting Israel and, in Poland, the sites of ghettos and the Majdanek concentration camp. "That camp was very well preserved," Dunn said. "It could be operational in 48 hours. That experience made me question who I am, what I am doing in my life." It was only natural, then, that in his first major project as a film student, he would choose to explore the theme of intolerance and injustice. Spielberg, director Peter Weir (Dead Poets Society), and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman (the Maus series) are a few of the creative influences Dunn cites as particularly inspiring and enduring. "A lot of humanity went into their work, with overall great storytelling," he said. There were other, more personal inspirations. "My parents too were incredible influences in that they supported all my ambitions," said Dunn. Then there's the age-old formula of persistence, passion, and ambition, traits that Dunn appears to possess in abundance despite his laid-back style. Not to mention just plain luck: Childhood memories would provide him with the perfect fit for the location of Escape from the Fire. "I was a Boy Scout in Randolph, and every year we would camp out at Fosterfields farm and help with crowd control for the Civil War reenactments." Dunn was convinced that the site, preserved from an earlier time, would make an ideal backdrop for his film, and that the farm's period barn could supply authentic tools and farming equipment as props to complete the look of its scenes. In speaking of his future goals, Dunn said he would like to continue directing commercials and music videos (he launched his own production company, Theory Films, in 2004 and has directed a dozen other short films as classroom projects, which he also wrote) and then segue into feature films. He is now in development with a writing partner on his first feature-length screenplay, which they plan to finish this summer. For now he's waiting to see which film festivals will accept Escape from the Fire. "I believe it is my duty to tell this story," writes Dunn in the Director's Note on his website www.EscapeFromTheFire.com. " It is an obligation I have to my people and to humanity. Although there is evil and hatred in the word, the power of humanity and selflessness still exists, whether in the guiding lights of faith, or in the essence of a child." << Back