An Interview with Amanda Rubin | 2024 JFI Filmmaker in Residence
The Jewish Film Institute is proud to feature 2024 Filmmaker in Residence Amanda Rubin and her project The Third Reich of Dreams: Dreaming Under Dictatorship as our JFI Resident Spotlight for this month. Read on for an exclusive JFI interview with Rubin about the story behind the project!
About the Film: From Weimar Activist to dream collector to New York celebrity stylist, the untold story of one woman’s undercover mission to collect evidence against the Nazis. A uniquely prophetic and penetrating insight into the psychological effects of totalitarianism.
Jewish Film Institute: What inspired you to make this film?
Amanda Rubin: Like so many descendants of oppression and war, Charlotte’s story resonated deeply with my history. Born in apartheid South Africa, to families who’d fled pogroms, and survived death camps, I carry a deep sense of loss and displacement, alongside an acute awareness of injustice and the dire consequence of racism.
Discovering Charlotte’s compelling story of bravery, brilliant originality, and reinvention has also inspired me, as a woman film-maker, I want to snatch from obscurity these rich female lives and contributions, often untold and air-brushed from history. What, I wondered what we could we learn from this unique collection of dreams, about our own, increasingly divided world? About how propaganda can distort and control citizens, how we consciously and unconsciously are made to conform, and what happens as we struggle, internally, to make sense of the world.
JFI: Where are you now in the filmmaking process?
AR: We’re in late development on the film — piecing together Charlotte’s extensive archive of letters, manuscripts and audio interviews to shape a poetic and reflective first-person telling of her story. And we’re very excited to begin exploring the potential of AI creative technology applied to this 1930’s dreamscape, exploiting the idea that both (AI and dreams) draw on the archive of our collective human imagination.
We’re hoping also to attract a younger audience to the subject, reaching this group through inventive educational-Impact campaigns, and alongside social justice partners.
JFI: How is the JFI Filmmaker Residency helping you develop your project?
AR: It’s been a huge privilege to be supported by and share ideas with other filmmakers facing similar and different challenges. Everyone brings an abundance of experience, creativity and emotional intelligence to each of the projects, and we’re all rooting for eachother in an honest and genuinely enabling way.
Our mentors and workshops have been so carefully curated to deepen our insights not only into story-telling but beyond to fundraising, pitching, marketing, impact campaigns etc. It has been so useful for me to engage with the business landscape, to gain understanding of the U.S. model and also tap into the creative Jewish community there.
JFI: How does this story add to our collective understanding of Jewish life, culture, history or identity?
AR: I was struck by the discovery that so many German Jews had felt so assimilated: “It wasn’t until after Kristallnacht that Hitler made me feel as though I wasn’t a German. Charlotte wrote. Her dreamers were not only Jewish but from all walks of life: and collectively they reveal how propaganda and terror sapped the will to fight back, and how few people managed to resist, wishing instead, in their dreams, to conform, be accepted and belong. I’m hoping a younger audience will be drawn to this different lens on Holocaust history, adding to the conversation about what ‘racism’ and ‘othering’ means, and about the fragility of our freedoms and democracy.
JFI: If you could screen your film as a double feature with any film, what movie would you choose and why?
AR: Discovering an aesthetic and tone-of-voice for Charlotte’s story and dreams has involved a great exploration of film genres. Alongside the early Expressionist and later Experimental film-makers, “I Am Not Your Negro”, the history of racism in the United States told through James Baldwin’s recollections, would sit neatly alongside this film. For in the 1960’s, as a journalist for German Radio, Charlotte presented many programs about Civil Rights struggle in the US — drawn to the harsh and tragic reality of ‘race’ and ‘othering’, which she had experienced so cruelly. I hope we’re able to create a similarly beautiful, seamless portrait about the decades of upheaval and displacement, and her search for justice and belonging.
About the Filmmaker: Amanda Rubin is a documentary/specialist factual director who works across arts/music, history, current affairs, and science on scripted and observational documentaries, topical magazine, and short form. Her film credits include: 21st CENTURY MYTHOLOGIES (about the life of French philosopher Roland Barthes for BBC Four), DANCEWORKS (behind the scenes of great modern dancers) for BBC Four, two very high-rating ob-docs for Channel 4’s flagship CUTTING EDGE Series (NURSES and A-is-for-ACCIDENT) A LATE SHOW Special: RUNAWAY WIVES AND HOME-ALONE KIDS for BBC 2, BROS: The DOCUMENTARY for SKY Tv, THE NEW RUSSIA (5-part geography series) for Channel 4, THE UNEXPLAINED for The History Channel, INSIDE THE HEIST for Discovery +.
About the JFI Filmmakers in Residence Program: The JFI Filmmakers in Residence Program is a year-long artist residency that provides creative, marketing, and production support for emerging and established filmmakers whose documentary projects explore and expand thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity.
