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Spielberg unveils Holocaust documentary in Kiev homecoming
by Stephen Boykewich
"I got off the plane today and said: 'I'm home!'" the director told journalists after a press screening of his latest project, the Holocaust documentary "Spell Your Name." The film, directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Bukovsky and produced by Spielberg and Ukrainian billionaire Viktor Pinchuk, continues a theme that has occupied Spielberg for over a decade.
A year after his award-winning 1993 film "Schindler's List" brought the horrors of Nazi persecution of Jews to a new generation, Spielberg's Shoah Foundation began to interview Holocaust survivors, mostly from Ukraine.
Having grown up with four Ukrainian grandparents, Spielberg has a strong personal connection to the country.
"I have no good excuse for why this is my first visit," he said. But growing up with his grandparents in the house, "I felt like I had a piece of Ukraine in my own home, especially at dinnertime."
The Shoah Foundation's video archive of over 52,000 interviews with Holocaust survivors is the world's largest such collection -- and became the basis for the new film by Bukovsky, whose previous documentaries have won awards in Europe.
"Spell Your Name" weaves together the stories of Holocaust survivors, rescuers, and a trio of young film assistants whose lives are changed by the stories they hear during their work.
"I believe that hearing the stories of Holocaust survivors from all over the world is going to change the world, and already has," Spielberg said.
Pinchuk, a steel magnate who is Ukraine's second-richest man, pitched the idea when the two met in the United States during the filming of Spielberg's 2005 alien invasion remake "War of the Worlds."
"He came to me and said there's a story I think is necessary to tell and this is the time to tell it," the US director said.
Pinchuk told journalists he felt compelled to help tell the story of the tragedy of Ukraine's Jews, nearly 1.5 million of whom were slaughtered during World War II.
Pinchuk said his own family had escaped Kiev shortly before the 1941 massacre at Babi Yar, in which Nazis killed tens of thousands of Jews.
"My family managed to escape Babi Yar, but many people they knew, their friends, their neighbors -- many of them wound up there," Pinchuk said.
Spielberg said the film, which should be commercially released worldwide next year, is part of the work needed "in order to create an undeniability about the Holocaust."
"I started Shoah simply because I wanted these survivors to have some place to tell their stories," he said.
"When these survivors are no longer with us, their stories will be with my children, and they'll be teaching my children about the consequences of not reaching out and attempting to better get to know each other."
President Viktor Yushchenko was among the first Ukrainians to see the new film, attending a VIP screening later in the day.
