Laura Bialis () is an American-Israeli filmmaker best known for directing and producing the documentary films Rock in the Red Zone (2015) and Refusenik (2008).
Biography
Laura R. Bialis was born in Los Angeles, California and grew up in Los AngelesSamin, Lisa. “City Front: Documenting the Human Spirit” The Jerusalem Post. January 3, 2008 and Santa Barbara, California. She attended Westlake School for Girls in LA and San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara.Preston, Ben. “The Long Road Home”, Santa Barbara Independent. May 22, 200816. A Journey Back Hellwarth, Ben Santa Barbara News Press September 6, 1998Preston, Ben. “The Long Road Home”, Santa Barbara Independent. May 22, 2008.A Journey Back Hellwarth, Ben Santa Barbara News Press September 6, 1998 She got her start in production as a summer intern at Rod Lathim's Access Theatre,“FILM REVIEW: Rock Among the Ruins.” Santa Barbara News Press. January 22, 2016 a nationally acclaimed theater company for performers with disabilities.
Bialis graduated from Stanford University with a degree in history.Samin, Lisa. “City Front: Documenting the Human Spirit” The Jerusalem Post. January 3, 2008Bengali, Shashank. “Grand Jewry Investigation.” USC Trojan Family Magazine. Volume 33, Number 4, Winter 2001, p. 43-49 At Stanford she specialized in wartime and post-war Eastern European studies, and became fascinated with underground resistance movements. While at Stanford, Bialis conducted research at the Hoover Institution Archive.
Bialis earned a Master of Fine Arts in Production from the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television.“FILM REVIEW: Rock Among the Ruins.” Santa Barbara News Press. January 22, 2016Love in a Rocket Battered Israeli Town Haaretz February 11. 2015 Though focused on the narrative filmmaking track, Bialis became drawn to documentary after her classmates’ positive reception to her first short documentary, Attitude (1997), which was initially created as a class project at USC. The film followed a day in the life of a 13-year-old athlete, actor, and musician, Tyler Dumm,“FILM REVIEW: Rock Among the Ruins.” Santa Barbara News Press. January 22, 2016 who was blind and also a partial amputee.Samin, Lisa. “City Front: Documenting the Human Spirit” The Jerusalem Post. January 3, 2008 While at USC, Bialis also produced and directed Daybreak Berlin.Steinberg, Jessica. “Love and Persistence Amid the Kassams.” The Times of Israel. December 12, 2014 The film is based on the memoir of German-American artist Ilse-Margret Vogel, who was active in Berlin's unofficial underground during World War II.
Filmmaking career
Bialis met classmates Broderick Fox and Sarah Levy on the first day of USC film school in the fall of 1996.Richman, Rick. “Capturing History and Hope on Film”. The Jewish Journal. Los Angeles. April 28, 2000. Nine months later, the three found themselves in the remote Lithuanian countryside, filming Holocaust survivor Judy Meisel as she searched for her father's grave in an abandoned Jewish cemetery just outside the tiny shtetl town of Jasvene. Their work resulted in the team's acclaimed feature documentary, Tak for Alt – Survival of a Human Spirit.Bengali, Shashank. “Grand Jewry Investigation.” USC Trojan Family Magazine. Volume 33, Number 4, Winter 2001, p. 43-49Richman, Rick. “Capturing History and Hope on Film”. The Jewish Journal. Los Angeles. April 28, 2000.
Bialis is the founder of the Foundation for Documentary Projects, a non-profit organization with the mission of creating documentaries and curricula about important historical and social issues.
Tak for Alt Tak for Alt – Survival of a Human Spirit is a 1999 feature-length documentary directed by Laura Bialis, Broderick Fox, and Sarah Levy.Richman, Rick. “Capturing History and Hope on Film”. The Jewish Journal. Los Angeles. April 28, 2000.
The documentary chronicles the story of Holocaust survivor Judy Meisel, whose experiences during World War II inspired a lifelong campaign for civil rights.Letofsky, Irv, “Tak For Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit” TV Reviews, The Hollywood Reporter. Monday May 1, 2000 The film weaves archival material and location footage of Meisel retracing her wartime journey – from her birth in a Lithuanian shtetl, to the Kovno ghetto where she worked slave labor in a boot factory, crawling across a frozen river after fleeing a death march from the Stutthoff Concentration Camp, where she watched her mother being taken to the gas chamber, and finally escaping to Denmark at age 16, weighing forty-seven pounds. Judy's path ultimately led to the United States, where, after witnessing race riots in 1963, she dedicated her life to education as a civil rights advocate, touring the country speaking to students and community groups about her experiences and the importance of respect and tolerance.Hellwarth, Ben. “A Spirit Survives”. Santa Barbara News Press. April 29, 2000Bengali, Shashank. “Grand Jewry Investigation.” USC Trojan Family Magazine. Volume 33, Number 4, Winter 2001, p. 43-49Rickey, Carrie. “A Life-Affirming Saga of Survival and Spirit” The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia. March 10, 2000
Tak for Alt (“Thanks for All” in Danish) received widespread critical acclaimHellwarth, Ben. “A Spirit Survives”. Santa Barbara News Press. April 29, 2000 and was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences as “one of the outstanding films of 1999.”Dumpert, Hazel-Dawn. “Academy/Contemporary Documentaries” LA Weekly Nov. 10-16, 2000. Vol. 22 No. 51 It was included in the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, was released theatrically in Los Angeles and aired on PBS.Samin, Lisa. “City Front: Documenting the Human Spirit” The Jerusalem Post. January 3, 2008Hellwarth, Ben. “A Spirit Survives”. Santa Barbara News Press. April 29, 2000 Tak for Alt won the Anti-Defamation League's Dore Schary Award.
The Jewish Voice said, “The hour-long film is awesome in its method of telling Meisel's amazing story,”Glazier, Joel. “Tak for Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit” Jewish Voice. Philadelphia. April 14, 2000. P. 25. and The Hollywood Reporter called it, “a grandly done production.”Letofsky, Irv, “Tak For Alt: Survival of a Human Spirit” TV Reviews, The Hollywood Reporter. Monday May 1, 2000 Film critic Ella Taylor called it “searing”Dumpert, Hazel-Dawn. “Academy/Contemporary Documentaries” LA Weekly Nov. 10-16, 2000. Vol. 22 No. 51 Reviewer Carrie Rickey of The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “an extraordinary documentary about an extraordinary life,” and “listening to Meisel, it is as though Anne Frank had miraculously lived.”Rickey, Carrie. “A Life-Affirming Saga of Survival and Spirit” The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia. March 10, 2000 Hundreds of thousands of high school students have viewed the film as part of Holocaust education programs along with an accompanying curriculum guide, written by Beth Seldin Dotan and Kathleen McSharry.Dotan, Beth Seldin. “Community Says ‘Thanks for All’” The Jewish Press. October 18, 2002. Page 12. The film continues to screen annually in schools across the United States.
Refusenik
Refusenik is a 2008 feature-length documentary written, directed, and produced by Laura Bialis, and co-produced by Stephanie Seldin Howard. Refusenik is the first retrospective documentary to chronicle the thirty-year international human rights campaign to free more than 1.5 million Soviet Jews who tried to escape the pervasive anti-Semitism of postwar Russia. Refuseniks is the term that Soviet Jews gave themselves when they were refused exit visas.Preston, Ben. “The Long Road Home”, Santa Barbara Independent. May 22, 2008.
Told through the eyes of activists on both sides of the Iron Curtain, the film shows how a small grassroots effort bold enough to confront the Cold War superpower transformed into an international human rights campaign. The film is a tapestry of first-person accounts of heroism, sacrifice, and ultimately, liberation. “One of the proudest chapters in Jewish history, the story of the refuseniks demonstrates the need for Jewish solidarity, the importance of the State of Israel, and the responsibilities we face as individuals living in a democracy,” read a review in Jewish Current Issues. Much of the material used in Refusenik was unique and exclusive to the film. Interviews with leaders in the movement (including Anatoly Sharansky) were some of the first ever to be recorded. Many of the photographs and covert film footage – some of it smuggled out of the Soviet Union – had never been seen before by a large audience, and helped make Refusenik a unique portrait of this important story. “Rarely is the subject (of human rights abuses) addressed as effectively as it is in Laura Bialis' absorbing new documentary, Refusenik,” read a review in The Seattle Times. “It symbolized hope over tragedy, and the triumph of the human spirit." In an interview with the Jewish Daily Forward, Bialis said, “The film changed my life. I realized how much each one of us can contribute to what is happening in the world. Working with this material really inspired me not to wait for someone else to change things but to take things into my own hands.”“Documentary Pulls Back Iron Curtain” The Jewish Daily Forward. May 16, 2008.
The film received a 5-star rating from Time Out Chicago reporter Andrea Gronvall who stated, “Bialis, a meticulous researcher and a born storyteller, backs up contemporary interviews with rare footage culled from Russian archives and old home movies.”Gronvall, Andrea. Time Out Chicago Issue 173: June 19–25, 2008 The Chicago Tribune noted the magnitude of the documentary, “This is a film about an important era in modern history, but it also speaks volumes about the everlasting potency and beauty of the human spirit in search of freedom.” And Variety, called it “absorbing.” Similar reviews in The Jerusalem Post, Seattle Post-Intelligencer and New York Jewish Week were favorable. The film was theatrically released in 15 cities across the United States, and in over 50 community screenings internationally. It has been broadcast in Israel on IBA Channel 1, and Yes.
View from the Bridge – Stories from Kosovo (2008) View from the Bridge – Stories from Kosovois a feature-length documentary produced and directed by Laura Bialis and John Ealer that explores tensions among Serbs, Albanians, and Roma (Gypsies) in the ethnically divided Kosovo town of Mitrovica.Soares, Andre (2008-03-17). "VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: STORIES FROM KOSOVO – Q&A with John Ealer and Laura Bialis". Altfg.com. http://www.altfg.com/film/john-ealer-laura-bialis-interview-view-from-the-bridge/ In order to portray the differences – and similarities – among those disparate groups, Ealer and Bialis opted for a personal approach to their subject matter, letting the people of Kosovo speak for themselves. Thus, View from the Bridge relies on first-person accounts – “sometimes hopeful, sometimes tragic” – of the lives of those suffering the physical and emotional consequences of the politics of divisiveness.Soares, Andre (2008-03-17). "VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: STORIES FROM KOSOVO – Q&A with John Ealer and Laura Bialis". Altfg.com. http://www.altfg.com/film/john-ealer-laura-bialis-interview-view-from-the-bridge/ Bialis became interested in the subject matter after meeting a United Nations worker who shared her stories of traveling to Kosovo and the struggle that existed there to recover both politically and societally. “When politics fuels polarization, no society is immune to violence,” noted Bialis in an interview with Alt Film Guide.Soares, Andre (2008-03-17). "VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE: STORIES FROM KOSOVO – Q&A with John Ealer and Laura Bialis". Altfg.com. http://www.altfg.com/film/john-ealer-laura-bialis-interview-view-from-the-bridge/