LA Premiere of "FOR THE LIVING" with Q&A

Schedule

Thu Mar 27 2025 at 07:00 pm to 09:30 pm

Location

Museum of Tolerance | Los Angeles, CA

When will we stop building monuments for the dead and get busy re-humanizing the living? When will we finally say NEVER AGAIN and mean it?
About this Event

"An Essential Lesson for all Humanity!" ~ Solzy at the Movies

Join LAJFF, Museum of Tolerance, and Holocaust Museum LA for the Los Angeles Premiere of "FOR THE LIVING"
Q&A to follow film with co-writers/directors Marc Bennett and Tim Roper, co-writer Rabbi Brett Kopin, Executive Producer Melinda Goldrich and film participant and Holocaust scholar, Michael Berenbaum.

Synopsis: In January 1945, after 2 years as a prisoner in a death camp, 10-year-old Holocaust survivor Marcel Zielinksi embarked on a perilous 60-mile journey by foot from Auschwitz-Birkenau through an active war zone to Krakow, Poland. A child’s desperate search for any surviving family members. A journey from Darkness to Light.

Decades later, 250 cyclists from 12 different countries traveled to Auschwitz and re-traced 84-year-old Marcel’s liberation path as a collective act of empathy called "Ride for the Living", which was created by JCC Krakow.

Marcel’s dehumanizing Holocaust experience and the empathy demonstrated during "Ride for the Living" provide a stunning parallel for Humankind’s equally perilous journey between the two extremes of our nature: Dehumanization to Empathy. Darkness to Light.
The film contrasts and explores the history of centurie-old dehumanization and genocides in Armenia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, American First Nations and more, igniting the urgent conversation: When will we stop building monuments for the dead and get busy re-humanizing the living? When will we finally say NEVER AGAIN and truly mean it!

USA, Poland/2024/117 minutes

CAST
Marcel Zielinski, Scholar Michael Berenbaum, Benjamin Ferencz - prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials, Jonathan Ornstein, Jonathan Greenblatt of the ADL, Neil deGrasse Tyson

DIRECTORS' BIO

Marc Bennett is a co-director, co-writer, and co-producer of "For the Living". An artist and filmmaker, he has directed multiple feature films, documentaries, and award-winning shorts, including "The Tattooed Torah", narrated by Ed Asner, which premiered at the LA Jewish Film Festival. He also executive produced "Who Are the Marcuses?" His artwork is currently on display at the Museum of Tolerance, Holocaust Museum LA and Sinai Temple.
Tim Roper, also a co-director and co-writer of "For the Living", is an award-winning filmmaker and branded content creator, known for his work that has appeared on platforms like the Super Bowl and 60 Minutes.