'Draw Back the Curtain' up for major award at upcoming film festival

“Draw Back the Curtain,” a feature-length documentary produced and released by Jewish Family Services and University of Richmond Hillel, is a contender for the “Best Feature Film” award at the upcoming Flickers: Rhode Island International Film Festival. It will be screened Aug. 8 at 4:30 p.m. at Brown University, McCormick Family Theater.

“Draw Back the Curtain” details the Richmond community’s role in resettling 800 refugees from the former Soviet Union starting in the late 1980s.

The film premiered at the Modlin Center for the Arts on the University of Richmond campus in the fall to an audience of more than 500 people. The film was then shown as part of the Roving Eye International Film Festival in Rhode Island in April. In May, approximately 150 people attended a screening at the Carole and Marcus Weinstein Jewish Community Center as part of a celebration of Jewish American Heritage Month. The documentary also aired in June on WCVE PBS Richmond and WHTJ PBS Charlottesville.

A permanent exhibition of the project is located at Beth Ahabah Museum and Archives in Richmond through 2015.

“We are thrilled that so many groups of people have been able to see and interact with this amazing project,” said Shir Bodner, “Draw Back the Curtain” director, a business analyst with Jewish Family Services and UR alumna. “We would love for our project to spread to other cities where similar immigration stories are waiting to be captured.”

For more information, visit the film festival website or www.DrawBacktheCurtain.com.

# # #