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Spielberg personally supervised the complete restoration of the Holocaust based movie, which he won a total of seven Oscars when it was originally released in the autumn of 1993. Now the restored version, will make its public debut at a benefit show organized by the USC Shoah Foundation’s Institute for Visual History and Education due to be held in September.
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/ By Stanley Green /
Steven Spielberg has decided to mark the twentieth anniversary of his epic film Schindler’s List with a series of special screenings beginning from Thursday, the 12th of September. All income from showings of the movie will go towards the USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education, a charity organisation which Spielberg founded in 1994, after being deeply affected by the harrowing vistas he had experienced whilst making the film.
The series of showings will begin with the special benefit screening at the Prince Music Theater in Philadelphia, which will also highlight the re-opening of the famous venue, with much of the funding for renovation coming from the Karen & Herb Lotman Foundation.
According to Steve Cozen, a member of the Board of Councilors of the USC Shoah Foundation, the event provides a unique opportunity to bring together the community to both remember and pay tribute to the survivors and ensure that their stories are heard, preserved and used for education. “And the debut showing’s significance is greater than ever because of its coincidence with the Yom Kippur holiday on September 13.” Summed up Cozen.
The USC Shoah Foundation has been dedicated, since it’s founding, to the presentation of audio-visual interviews with survivors and witnesses not only of the Holocaust but also other genocides, making for a permanent collection and a compelling voice to be used in the furtherance of education and action. Currently featuring nearly 52, 000 eyewitness testimonies in its Visual History Archive (VHA) taken in 57 countries and recorded a total of 33 languages, the Steven Spielberg inspired USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive is the largest digital collection of its kind in the world.
The University of Pennsylvania is now one of 44 sites around the world that has full research access to the Visual History Archive; and one of the principal pioneers in the USC Shoah Foundation’ latest initiative, “IWitness”
IWitness, the Institute’s educational website, has been recently recognized by the American Association of School Librarians as being one of the “Best Websites for Teaching and Learning”.
The IWitness website was established to provide both students and teachers with access to 1, 300 testimonies in order to permit guided exploration and multimedia projects through its own integral video editor.
By providing the ability to integrate and combined actual testimony-based education with the development of digital literacy as well as other 21st-century competencies, IWitness has been seen to be capable of encouraging high levels of critical thinking and self-reflection among students, as well as assisting them in gaining a sense of their own place in history.
Tickets for the Philadelphia benefit will range from between $1000 to $100 for individual tickets. Additional city venues are expected to be be announced shortly.
