Cinema
The Great Promise
Joseph Lejtes · 1947
Synopsis
The film opens with newsreels of the last battles and the camps. Three soldiers of the Jewish Brigade meet there a despairing survivor, whose family has been exterminated and who has nowhere to go, and each tells him a story. Dan tells of his kibbutz, born from a malaria-infested marsh, where he met his wife. The second, a former schoolteacher, reads a letter about the reception of surviving children, among them Tamar, a ten-year-old girl who hides objects under her mattress. The third, a corporal, describes the Jordan and the enterprises along it, as far as the Dead Sea.
Context
Production began as early as 1945, when the scale of the Shoah was coming to light, and it is regarded as the first film to show what it had done to the surviving children. The children's episode was shot at the Shomriya institution at Mishmar ha-Emek, from a screenplay by Shulamit Bat-Dori. The photography is by Stan Lipinski, the music by Mischa Spoliansky. The production is attributed to Carmel Films (to the Jewish National Fund by the American press). The episodic form was meant to make the country known to a wider audience.
Who it is for
A medium-length film of about fifty minutes, in English. It is worth knowing that it was made to show Palestine to audiences abroad.
Prizes and reception
Regarded today as a valuable document of its time, despite devices that the viewer sees coming.