Shabbat Across LA, Gap Year Fair, Holocaust Film

Jewish Journal

Ryan Torok

12/18/2019

From left: StandWithUs (SWU) COO Jerry Rothstein; SWU CEO Roz Rothstein; “Shepherd” star August Maturo; writer-director-producer Lynn Roth and Carly Gammill, director of the SWU Center for Combating Anti-Semitism. Photo by Jonah Light Photogrphy

The Pro-Israel organization StandWithUs held a Nov. 26 screening of the celebrated 2019 Holocaust era-set film “Shepherd: The Story of a Jewish Dog” at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills.

Set in Nazi Germany during World War II, the film, which is based on the bestselling Israeli novel “The Jewish Dog” and won the Audience Award at the 2019 L.A. Jewish Film Festival, is about a Jewish boy whose parents give away his beloved German shepherd, Kaleb, after the Nazis banned Jews from owning pets. The boy and the dog eventually are reunited in the same concentration camp before escaping together.

Following the screening, the film’s writer-producer-director Lynn Roth participated in a panel discussion and Q&A with the film’s child star August Maturo and StandWithUs CEO and Co-Founder Roz Rothstein. Although the film was set in Germany, Roth shot it in Hungary, which offered the period-piece setting they sought for the film, Roth said.

Roth discussed how they used several dogs to portray Kaleb. She also said the film was shot for approximately the same cost as an episode of the television show “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.”

Maturo, who is not Jewish, discussed his experience working on the film. He addressed a crowd that included many of his family members.

The StandWithUs Center for Combating Anti-Semitism organized the event, which concluded with a dessert reception.

Read the article here.