‘THE WOODS’ PITCH MATERIALS
Logline: ‘The Woods’ Narrative Short
At the dawn of Passover 1943, a pregnant woman and her family flee Nazi-occupied Veria, Greece for a remote mountain village. When their guide fails to appear, the group is plunged into a harrowing fight for survival in the woods as the clock ticks down to the new baby's birth.
Proof of Concept: “The Well” Documentary Short, 2024
This documentary film is comprised of our field research for ‘The Woods’ and provides context for the narrative short by presenting first-hand accounts of Jewish Shoah survivors from Veria. During Passover of 1943, over one-hundred Jews actually fled Veria in Nazi-occupied Northern Greece to escape deportations. Some found refuge in remote mountain villages, while others struggled to survive in the woods until the end of the war. Incredibly, thanks to the help of many righteous individuals, perhaps most notably Priest Nestoras of the remote mountain village, Sykia, almost all of them survived. According to scholar Giorgos Antoniou, “This rare and exciting tale of the survivors of [Veria] is one of the many largely forgotten stories of the genocide, the likes of which are rarely encountered.” The narrative version will delve deeper into the story of one family, viscerally immersing the viewer in the landscape and rendering tangible this devastating yet hopeful experience of the Shoah.