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Eight-year-old refugee Hannah makes friends with Emiko aboard a luxury cruise liner while escaping Nazi Germany for Shanghai; what will happen to their friendship when Japan joins the Axis?
LAST SHIP EAST is a coming-of-age story about the shared human need for belonging across cultures, even in a world of division and isolation. Inspired by true history.
My hometown Shanghai provided sanctuary to 20,000 Holocaust refugees. Between 1938 and 1940, luxury ocean liners carried them across the Indian Ocean and arrived at the free port in the East. It’s a unique episode of the Holocaust history where the ocean liners sheltered the refugees from the trauma behind and the challenges ahead. There is a clear parallel to the biblical Miriam’s Song of the Sea - With their enemies close behind them and a vast desert ahead of them, the Israelites allowed themselves a brief respite to rejoice. The voyage to Shanghai represents a significant cultural convergence between the Holocaust and the Sino-Japanese War during WWII. With anti-Semitism and anti-Asian hate unfortunately rising, I hope that LAST SHIP EAST can help meditate on the intersection of Asian and Jewish cultures, and build solidarity across communities. |
SS Conte Verde and Jewish refugees en route to Shanghai. Image courtesy of USHMM; Provenance: Ralph Harpuder |
HANNAH, Jewish, 8 Having spent weeks fleeing the Nazis, 8-year-old Hannah and her parents board a Japanese luxury ocean liner sailing to Shanghai. Hannah’s spirit never breaks, even after the Nazis took away her home and everything with it. She sees her family’s journey to the East as an adventure - a once-a-lifetime opportunity to explore the vast ocean and exotic lands, with endless chocolate pretzels waiting at the other end. But Hannah’s pure heart sometimes also translates to naivety and recklessness. When the radiant bubble of Emiko’s friendship pops, Hannah learns to face the loss of her homeland and the sense of belonging that comes with it for the first time. | EMIKO, Japanese, 9 Emiko and Hannah’s boundless imagination and youthful exuberance allow them to click instantly. Growing up as a diplomat’s only daughter, Emiko lives a charmed life where she is protected and doted upon. Her experience with many different cultures makes her comfortable with the fact that Hannah is clearly not from the same world as her. Because Emiko cares for Hannah, she wants to adopt Hannah into her worldview with its many rules and luxuries. Little does she know that external forces have created a chasm between them that no amount of playfulness or care can bridge. |
When the Japanese military broke into Nanjing and massacred 300,000 innocent civilians, my grandmother was a six-year-old girl. She and her father fled the city, traveled across half of China to Hong Kong en route of Wuhan, and boarded a steamship that eventually docked in the only sanctuary during the Japanese invasion - Shanghai.
In hindsight, it seems to be a bizarre and risky detour as the direct distance from Nanjing to Shanghai is only four hours by car. But in fact, they, like so many refugees, simply had no idea of where to go. Nowhere accepted them. Nowhere was safe.
Seventy years later, when I stood in front of a trench comprised of victims’ shoes in the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem, I was suddenly returned to the imagery from the Rape of Nanjing and couldn’t stop weeping.
The collective trauma of war struck me - this is not only the experience of one people, but a universal human theme of grief, survival, and hope. LAST SHIP EAST came to me as a unique aspect of the Holocaust experience in which I see significant connections between the Jewish migrants’ experience and my grandmother’s.
Looking back at the atrocities of the Holocaust and the Rape of Nanjing, it is not only important to commemorate them as part of how we learn from history and honor the victims, but also to study them to find connections between communities. Through children’s eyes, I want to diminish the binary like in THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS, and contrast their ignorance with the cruel undercurrents, similar to THE FLORIDA PROJECT.
The clock is ticking as the WWII survivors are passing. With the war waging in Ukraine, and Japan aiming to retract their peace commitment from their constitution, we now live in a world with much more violence, division, and discrimination. I hope that LAST SHIP EAST can help meditate on the intersection of Asian and Jewish cultures, and build solidarity across communities.
Films have a unique power to connect viscerally with their audience and we hope Last Ship East will spark curiosity about this piece of history and the Jewish and Chinese communities that came together during that time. We are targeting Jewish and Asian audiences who are invested in seeing their history represented on screen, as well as arthouse film lovers and history movie fans by nature of its subject. And since the story is told from children’s perspective, we see it as great educational material for families to pass down the history.
We have a tiered festival strategy to maximize the film’s impact and reach. The first tier is A-list film festivals in Europe, where the Holocaust had the deepest influence. We aim to have the film ready by November 2023, which is right in time for Cannes and Berlinale. Other target international premieres include Venice, Rotterdam, San Sebastian, and Raindance, where our creative team has had their work shown before.
When it comes to North America, we have already secured spots at LA Shorts and HollyShorts, which are both Academy-qualifying festivals. We will also submit to Sundance, TIFF, Tribeca, Telluride, AFIFest, and other Academy-qualifying festivals, gearing towards an Academy campaign.
The third tier is regional festivals specifically targeting Jewish and Asian communities. In the US, we are targeting Jewish Film Festivals and Asian American film festivals including New York Jewish Film Festival, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, CAAMFest, and LA Asian Pacific Film Festival. Looking beyond the US, we will submit to festivals located where the story is relevant, including Shanghai International Film Festival in China, Short Film Festival Oberhausen in Germany, and Short Shorts in Japan.
The film will also have a life after the festival circuit. W e plan to develop an education package so the film could have a long-lasting impact in classrooms for generations to come. We will also organize screenings and panels with institutions like Holocaust Museum LA, creating meaningful discussions around the subject. The ideal final home of the film would be a streaming platform targeting our core audience, like HBOMax, The New Yorker, or Kanopy.
Highlights
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ERIS Qian, Writer/Director Eris Qian is a writer/director/producer based in New York City and considers herself a global nomad. Born and raised in China, she lived and studied on five continents and leverages her diasporic experience to tell stories about women who defy the norms in finding their place in the world. Coming from the documentary world, her work spans across worlds one degree removed from the present tense while rooted in in-depth research and universal human experience. Eris’s debut short film MOTHER TONGUE premiered at CAAMFest, the biggest Asian American film festival in the world, and screened at 15 prestigious festivals globally. Her first feature PULLING SEEDLINGS was selected for 2021 Sundance x Women In Film Financing Strategy Intensive, the Mubi Wscripted Cannes Screenplay List, and the inaugural NYU Production Lab Development Studio. Her upcoming short LAST SHIP EAST won Best Screenplay at LA Shorts and Best Female Screenplay at HollyShorts, having gone through the Raindance Screenwriting Fellowship. Eris is also a member of the Stars Collective by Starlight Media. As a natural multi-hyphenate, Eris holds MBA/MFA dual degrees from NYU's Stern and Tisch. | RUI XU, Producer Rui Xu is an LA-based independent film producer committed to supporting and raising daring voices for underrepresented groups through the facilitation of filmmaking. Xu's producing work premiered at major film festivals. Her first short, 'Hieu,' premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019 and won the Deuxième Prix at Cinéfondation; 'Finis Terrae' was selected for the critics' week at the Venice International Film Festival 2020 and won the Special Mention FEDIC for Best Short Film. Her first feature, 'Way Out Ahead of Us,' is selected by Festival International de Cinema de Marseille in 2022. Xu serves as the co-executive director at Chinese in Entertainment, a non-profit organization missioned to support Chinese inherited young professionals in the entertainment industry. Xu is also a producing fellow in the Project Involve program of Film Independent in 2022. She holds master's degrees in Music Technology from NYU and Creative Producing from CalArts, where she will join the producing faculty in 2022 fall. | MÉLANIE AKOKA, Cinematographer Mélanie Akoka is a French writer, director and cinematographer of North-African sephardic descent ; currently based in New Orleans. She graduated from the Sorbonne University in Paris where she studied philosophy before working at a post-production and film lab where she developed her passion for film. She recently completed her 3rd year as a Graduate film student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. Her latest film, Yearlings, premiered at San Sebastian Film Festival. Since she joined NYU, she served as cinematographer on over a dozen short films which played at festivals such as Cannes, Sundance, TIFF and SXSW. She recently won the Nestor Almendros award for best female cinematography and is the recipient of the 2021 ArriVolker Bahnemann award for outstanding cinematography. | SHAO MIN CHEW CHIA, Co-Producer Shao Min Chew Chia began her career as a producer for a current affairs program on Channel News Asia. Since then, she has produced multimedia for international sporting events, commercials, music videos, short films, and documentaries. Her work has screened at film festivals, including Berlinale, San Sebastian, and Karlovy Vary, and been supported by The Spike Lee Production Fund and European Short Pitch. She is a 2021 Sundance Institute Producing Fellow, 2021 Film Independent Fellow, 2022 IFFR Rotterdam Lab Fellow, and 2022 SFFILM FilmHouseResident. As an undergraduate at Harvard University, she majored in the Comparative Study of Religion. In 2020, she graduated from NYU Tisch’s Graduate Film Program as an Ang Lee Scholar. Shao Min currently resides in San Francisco, but grew up in Singapore and considers it home. | DANIELLE PRETSFELDER DEMCHICK, Casting Director Danielle Pretsfelder Demchick, CSA (she/her/hers) is an advocate manifesting change in how the real world is reflected in today’s media. Nickelodeon was her casting home for over 14 years, where she tapped into her love of developing young talent. Some highlights from her Nickelodeon years include THE ASTRONAUTS, THE BARBARIAN AND THE TROLL, BLUE'S CLUES & YOU, BUBBLE GUPPIES, DORA THE EXPLORER, DRAMA CLUB, WALLYKAZAM, and WELCOME TO THE WAYNE. And she was nominated twice for the Daytime Emmy Award for her outstanding work. Since her departure from Nickelodeon to open her own casting office in April 2022, she has cast AMERICAN GIRL: CORINNE TAN, THE FIRST AMERICAN GIRL OF THE YEAR film, which tells the story of the first Chinese American Girl, for HBOMax and MarvistaEntertainment. The co-VP of Advocacy for the Casting Society of America, her work elevating underrepresented communities has been barrier breaking. She has led open calls for historical marginalized actors, including a global open call for Asian Actors (over 7,000 actors submitted.) | DANIEL GOULY, Composer/Cultural Consultant Daniel Gouly is an experienced professional clarinetist, educator, sound designer, electronic music composer and performer with a Masters in Music (Ethnomusicology and Performance) from SOAS, University of London and a PhD from the Open University, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. He specializes in performing in world music styles from across Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, and has studied with, and played alongside, legendary Klezmer musicians such as Alan Bern, Frank London, Merlin Shepherd, Christian Dawid, and Joel Rubin. Currently he is performing with the award-winning ensemble Don Kipper, a successful group playing festivals and concerts across the UK and Europe. He loves connecting music and theatre through his work across the UK, the US, and Europe with Bubble Schmeisis and Oily Cart’s Jamboree and writing a diverse range of music for Puppetry. His most recent project, supported by a 'Developing Your Creative Practice' award from Arts Council England, explores the intersection of electronic music and Chinese and Jewish folk music traditions alongside NYC-based sound artist, composer, and vocalist Lemon Guo. | LEMON GUO, Composer LEMON GUO is an interdisciplinary sound artist, composer, and vocalist from China. With a background in Chinese folk music and social psychology, Lemon holds an MFA in Sound Art from Columbia University and a BA in composition from the University of Virginia. She is now pursuing Doctor of Music Arts in music composition at Stanford University. Currently based in New York, Lemon has performed and exhibited her works internationally, in institutions such as Rubin Museum of Art, Katonah Museum of Art, Headlands Center for the Arts, Issue Project Room, Fridman Gallery, Ambient Church, 3-Legged Dog Art & Technology Center, EcoSono Festival of Environmental Music and Sound Art, New Interface for Musical Expression (US), BBC Radio 3, BBC Sounds, the Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, Resonance FM (UK), International Computer Music Conference (Korea), Chronus Arts Center, Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture (China), and United Nations Development Programme(UNDP). Lemon produced music for Yi Tang’s film All the Crows in the World, which will have its international premiere at Festival de Cannes 2021. | DORRIT CORWIN, Grant Researcher Dorrit Corwin is a sophomore at Brown University (2024), where she is double concentrating in Literary Arts and Modern Culture and Media. At Brown, Dorritsings in the Jabberwocks a cappella group, reads student script submissions as a coordinator at Brown Motion Pictures and as a member of the Ivy Film Festival screenplay staff, writes for the Arts and Culture section of Post- Magazine, and serves as the Vice President of Brown Lecture Board. Dorrit is an alumna of Marlborough School in Los Angeles (2019), the Rising Voices Fellowship (2018), and Diller Teen Fellows (2018). She has interned in film and television development at The Gotham Group and in education at the Holocaust Museum Los Angeles, and she currently works as a Diller Network Campus Intern at Brown-RISD Hillel and as an assistant to Lori Gottlieb, a prominent psychotherapist and New York Times bestselling author. Dorrit’s writing has appeared in the Jewish Journal, The College Hill Independent, and the Jewish Women’s Archive. She hopes to pursue screenwriting professionally. | LILY FORRESTER, Outreach Officer Lily Forrester is a senior anthropology major, music minor and varsity basketball player at Wellesley College. Lily is a global folk music and travel enthusiast. Her work experience ranges from Marketing Analytics to Outreach specialist in a range of industries, but her interest lies in entertainment, particularly film and music. Lily found her professional footing at New Circle Films, working on Donor and Partner Research for the feature-length documentary, Miles to Go Before She Sleeps . Lily has spearheaded academic study in ethnomusicology and pop anthropology through a podcast series, a passion project to bring the discipline into the mainstream. She is excited to be on board with the Last Ship East team! |
Fundraising
Last Ship East is a period film set in a special location, which requires expenses for set construction, costumes, and crew prep time.
We need your crucial support that can drive momentum and bring it to life. All of the donations will be tax-free due to the non-profit status of our fiscal sponsor, Jewish Creativity International. We anticipate funding the project with 40% from grants, 40% from donations, and 20% from corporate sponsorship.
We have partnered with organizations like Holocaust Museum LA , leveraging these relationships for fundraising support, including advertising our campaign in their newsletters, gaining access to their donors, and hosting panel discussions.
We also see the project as a great opportunity for purpose-driven businesses to promote their brand. We have created three tiers of sponsorship spots offering pre-roll or post-roll credits and free screenings with filmmaker Q&As.
Fundraising Milestones
$30,000 - We will be able to attach actors to the project and leverage that for more funding
$50,000 - We will be able to greenlight the production and shoot the film in Summer 2023
$80,000 - We will be able to pay industry standard rates to our key creatives including the director and the producers
$100,000 - We will be able to directly go into post-production after we have the film in the can
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