Posted by Larry Gleeson
Matthew Mishory’s Documentary Who Are the Marcuses?
About Unlikely Philanthropists Whose $500 Million Present Seeks
Peace and Local weather Motion By way of Water Expertise
Screens at Santa Barbara Worldwide Movie Pageant February 13 and 15
Who Are the Marcuses?, a function documentary a few mysterious Lengthy Island couple whose half a billion-dollar present to Ben-Gurion College in Israel conjures up peace and local weather motion by water tech, will display on the Santa Barbara Worldwide Movie Pageant subsequent month.
UC Santa Barbara alumnus Matthew Mishory (the upcoming Fioretta; Artur Schnabel: No Place of Exile) directed the movie. Producers are Rubber Ring’s and Stone Canyon’s Bradford Schlei (Swingers, Spun) and Alvaro Fernandez together with government producers Rob Levine (Legislation & Order, Columbo), Marc Bennett (Shared Legacies) and Rhino Movies’ Stephen Nemeth (Dogtown and the Z Boys, Local weather Refugees, Concern and Loathing in Las Vegas).
“Our movie has highly effective messages about local weather change, water expertise, the surroundings, and philanthropy that may change our world,” Mishory says. “However movies are additionally about storytelling, and this one tells a narrative so unbelievable and galvanizing, it may well solely be true. Screening at Santa Barbara is a homecoming for me and a dream come true for the manufacturing workforce. The area is each a rising eco-technology hub and fragile coastal ecosystem.”
Who Are the Marcuses? reconstructs the lives of Holocaust refugees Lottie and Howard Marcus, an unassuming couple from Nice Neck, New York, who retired to a modest two-bedroom house in San Diego, California. Former dentist Howard handed away in 2014 at age 104, and Lottie died lower than two years later. In 2016, Ben-Gurion College of the Negev introduced that the Marcuses had given them over half a billion {dollars}: the biggest single charitable donation to the State of Israel in its historical past. The movie concurrently traces the event of Israel’s important water expertise from pre-state to the current; how the Marcuses’ endowment has ensured continued modern improvement in water science for not solely the Israeli folks, however the world as a complete; units the household’s present in geopolitical context; and explores each its influence and implications for regional peace by expertise change. It options an authentic rating by legendary musician and peace activist David Broza.
Who have been these just about unknown philanthropists who had by no means publicly revealed their wealth or intentions? How did they accumulate hundreds of thousands by getting in on the early days of the best monetary companies empire ever constructed? What compelled them and their daughter Ellen to present all of it away? And why have been the Marcuses so captivated by the difficulty of water shortage and a little-known however modern college within the Israeli desert?
Who’re the Marcuses? options Warren Buffett; Israeli President Isaac Herzog; historian Daniel Gordis; best-selling thinker Micah Goodman; E. Randol Schoenberg; writer and activist Seth M. Siegel, and plenty of others. The movie was shot on location in Israel and the USA all through 2021.
The movie will display twice on the Pageant:
Monday, February 13th, 2023 8:30AM PST
Metropolitan Metro 4 Theatre, Display screen 4, 618 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Wednesday, February 15th, 2023 3PM PST (Reception to Observe)
Metropolitan Metro 4 Theatre, Display screen 4, 618 State St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101
Ticketing choices accessible right here: https://sbiff.org
