Production Still | The Jews of Corfu (2022) by Mirjan Gjergjevica & Maria Boua. Currently screening at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival – more in post The Jews Of Corfu | 20220310 – URL : https://michelvanderburg.com/2022/03/10/the-jews-of-corfu/
Review The Jews of Corfu
The Jews of Corfu – a population group that was an important part of the island, contributed to the formation of its history. But the tragic events that befell them were added to the black page of human history.
The film The Jews of Corfu (2022) is a powerful documentary by Mirjan Gjergjevica (direction, cinematography, editing, production) & Maria Boua (script, music, sound, production) with narration by Yannis Andriotis and stories told by Zaharias Matathias • Linos Sousis • Nina Vital.
Powerful — both visually and the sound — filmed in an innovative way, combining ambient sound and stories told outdoors with the Mediterranean background, in public spaces, the streets, and Corfu synagogue – with an excellent film score – that is especially impressive how it manages to accompany the viewer in scenes of holocaust atrocities.
The history of the Corfiot Jews – a mixture of Pugliese (from south Italy) and Romaniote (from Greece) is told in vivid detail from the Middle Ages to today.
I watched this fast paced film twice, last premiere weekend, to fully grasp the whole picture ~ Michel van der Burg – Monday , March 14, 2022.
Review The Jews of Corfu | 20220314 | Michel van der Burg | Miracles•Media
Westerbork Film 🎦 2021 | The complete remastered edition of the Westerbork Film , here annotated online in CC – by Michel van der Burg as an ongoing integrating resource.
The original display edition of the restored Westerbork film was edited only for black bar removal conform 4:3 format and insertion of a title card intro and outro. Annotations are added as CC – closed captions.
Source : digital display edition of the restored Westerbork film compilation made available in Public Domain by Sound and Vision from May 18, 2021. Courtesy of Collection NIOD held at the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. Source File : Westerbork (gerestaureerd) | Display edition. Retrieved (20210518) PID: URN:NBN:NL:IN:20-ZCRLTUSICOSDILNR .
Credit line :
Westerbork Film 🎦 2021 | 20220302 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com – CC BY 4.0
Description & Introduction film
The Westerbork Film – a silent film – is unique…the only authentic documentary footage filmed in a Nazi camp – a waiting room for death in the Netherlands for more than 100,000 Jews, and Roma, Sinti, and resistance workers. A documentary filmed spring 1944, in the Westerbork camp, by the German-Jewish camp prisoner Rudolf Werner Breslauer – the camp photographer, and commissioned by camp commander, SS-Obersturmbannführer, Albert Konrad Gemmeker.
The Westerbork camp was set up in 1939 before the war in Holland, by the Dutch government, as a central refugees camp for Jewish refugees from Nazi-Germany.
July 1942 , when the Nazi’s decided to start ‘Entjüdung’ of the Netherlands, they took over the camp for use as transit camp for deportation of mainly Jews, and Roma, Sinti, and resistance people to eastern Europe.
March 2, 1944 , SS leader Rauter in the Netherlands reports to Germany’s SS Reichsführer Himmler : the Netherlands are ‘Judenfrei’. March 5, 1944 the camp is ‘Arbeitslager’ – a work camp – when
Rudolf Breslauer starts filming the daily life of the Westerbork prisoners. After Breslauer films the deportation of Jews, Roma and Sinti to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz on May 19, 1944 the filming stops. The film is also not edited. In 1986 the dutch RVD Information Center makes a first montage in 4 acts of the footage into what is known now as the Westerborkfilm. In 2017 the film dossier – film and production documents – enter the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. Spring 2019 the Westerbork Film – full version (RVD) was published online and annotated – https://settela.com/2019/06/05/westerbork-film-full-version-rvd/ .
Spring 2019 the dutch Sound & Vision , EYE Filmmuseum and NIOD (former RIOD) started a major restauration project and search for all footage of the Westerbork film in all archives.
Two reels with original negative film were discovered by image researcher Gerard Nijssen.
All restored unique shots using both the camera original film and film copies (prints – when no original is known) were used for the new restored Westerbork film compilation made available as ‘display edition’ – with no title actually – by Sound and Vision | NIOD on May 18, 2021.
This newly restored 2021 version of the Westerbork film , 145 min long – was prepared for presentation here in 4:3 format (black bars removed) with a 6 seconds title card superimposed both at the start and the end of the film (superimposed on the originally 30 sec intro text and 17 sec outro text sections by Sound & Vision), in order not to change the length of the film – to allow exact reference to the original file’s timeline.
Westerbork Film 🎦 2021 | 20220302 was first uploaded March 2, 2022, and is now after annotation of the online film made public May 7, 2022 together with a short introductory film : Westerborkfilm Introduction | 20220507 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | An introduction film by Michel van der Burg on the Westerbork film with a first showing May 7, 2022 in METRO Kinokulturhaus , Vienna , Austria at the DOCUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION | DOKUMENTE DER VERNICHTUNG Symposium 6-7 May, 2022 curated by Florian Widegger. Presented by Filmarchiv Austria in cooperation with the Vienna Jewish Film Festival and the Mauthausen Memorial.
Annotations
On YouTube called Chapters – there limited number due to limit number of characters in description
NOTE : for this shot right after the Degen toddlers, Breslauer had to move all the way back to last cars of the transport to Auschwitz – May 19, 1944 – E198 Roll 2/4
00:17:03 Outbound transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz – May 19, 1944 – Original Reel E198 Roll 2/4
00:17:49 Gemmeker group passing camera in the middle
00:17:55 Outbound transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz – May 19, 1944 – Original Reel E198 Roll 2/4
Original Reel E198 Roll 3/4
00:18:13 Outbound transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz – May 19, 1944 – Original Reel E198 Roll 3/4
00:18:51 On the right : SS-Obersturmführer Albert Gemmeker , Commander of Westerbork transit camp
00:18:56 Outbound transport to Bergen-Belsen and Auschwitz – May 19, 1944 – Original Reel E198 Roll 3/4
Special thanks to Valentine Kuypers , curator at Sound and Vision, image researcher Gerard Nijssen, and the Westerbork Memorial Center researchers Bas Kortholt , Koert Broersma and Gerard Rossing. Aad Wagenaar, research journalist and author of book Settela.
Work on the 2021 Westerbork film edition has been a joint effort of four dutch organizations : the Dutch media archive Sound & Vision, Camp Westerbork Memorial Centre , the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam.
The Westerbork film, May 7, 2022 at the symposium DOKUMENTE DER VERNICHTUNG of the Jüdischen Filmfestival Wien , the Mauthausen Memorial , and Filmarchiv Austria.
Settela, het meisje heeft haar naam terug (1995-2007) by Aad Wagenaar ISBN 9789089751898 / English translation by Janna Eliot ‘Settela’ (2005-2016) ISBN 978-0-9933898-2-5 .
Documentary film Settela, gezicht van het verleden by Cherry Duyns (VPRO, 1994).
De Westerborkfilm 📽️🎞️ | Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid | YouTube Apr 8, 2021 URL https://youtu.be/8Y-A4BkWY18
Gerestaureerde filmbeelden Westerbork (1944) (May 18, 2021) Nederlands Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid | Youtube (accessed 2021 Jul 19) URL: https://youtu.be/-zCmr6PSNcI
Kamp Westerbork gefilmd (May 2021) Koert Broersma, Gerard Rossing (editor Gorcum B.V., Koninklijke van) ISBN 9789023257622.
‘Kamp Westerbork gefilmd’ by Koert Broersma and Gerard Rossing (editors Dirk Mulder and Ben Prinsen) ISBN 9023232658
Dawn Skorczewski & Bettine Siertsema (2018): ‘The kind of spirit that people still kept’: VHA testimonies of Amsterdam’s Diamond Jews, Holocaust Studies URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/17504902.2018.1516361
Diamantkinderen: Amsterdamse Diamantjoden en de Holocaust . Translated title of the contribution: Diamond Children: Amsterdam’s Diamond Jews and the Holocaust. Siertsema, Bettine (2020) Uitgeverij Verbum ISBN 9789493028340
Fabian Schmidt (2020): The Westerbork Film Revisited: Provenance, the Re-Use of Archive Material and Holocaust Remembrances, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, URL : https://doi.org/10.1080/01439685.2020.1730033
Westerbork Film Scripts | 20220508 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com
Westerbork Film Correspondence | 20220509 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com
ANONYM | Girl with the headscarf … | 20210416 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com
Westerbork Film in ‘Proces Rauter’ 1948 (20190520) Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com
Westerbork Film 🎦 2021 | 20220302 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | Display edition film annotated online in CC
Westerborkfilm Introduction | 20220507 | Michel van der Burg | Settela•Com | Introduction by Michel van der Burg on the Westerborkfilm screening in METRO Kinokulturhaus , Vienna , Austria at the DOCUMENTS OF DESTRUCTION | DOKUMENTE DER VERNICHTUNG Symposium 6-7 May, 2022 curated by Florian Widegger. Presented by Filmarchiv Austria in cooperation with the Vienna Jewish Film Festival and the Mauthausen Memorial.
20220511 Info on order of shots added in post Westerbork Film Shots Order | 20220511 . Based on that info , here the Annotations list now has sub-headings like ‘Original Reel E325’ etc.
20220604 – Format changes credit line , references
White Text HDR in Final Cut Pro | 20210114 | 1-memo•com
SUMMARY
Problem : Grey Text
White text eg. Titles in Final Cut Pro ,
looks grey on HDR footage ( iPhone 12 – Rec.2020 HLG ) in a FCP Wide Gamut library. Solution : HDR Tools
Apply HDR Tools to the title clips, logo (PNG) etc … Mode : PQ to HLG (Rec.2100) Peak Brightness (nits) 100 (– 200). Brightness may be fine tuned with a peak (nits) between eg. 100-200/300.
Text like eg. Titles in Final Cut Pro that normally is white in a standard library (SDR) is grey on HDR footage in a wide gamut library, and thus cannot be used in most cases.
Here I use a Wide Gamut library in Final Cut Pro (using version 10.4.10) and a Project color space : Wide Gamut HDR – Rec. 2020 HLG.
I today found a solution – workaround perhaps – using the HDR Tools filter in the app.
Just apply the filter to the title clip and set the HDR Tools Mode : PQ to HLG (Rec.2100) – Peak Brightness (nits) 100.
This also works in the Motion app that I use to make custom subtitle templates – here the HDR Tools is used on the layer ‘Type Text Here’.
Footage filmed in Dolby Vision HDR on the iPhone 12 Pro Max with Shure MV88 for sound, in the Green Heart of Holland.
This short film starts with no HDR Tools applied. Top left is the logo ① memo based on a PNG file. A FCP lower-third title is used in the first part. In the last part the summary text is shown in a custom made Motion template.
Binaural sound test with Primo EM272 external microphones inserted in Earbags as ‘headset’, plugged in the Sony ZV-1 camera with audio level 15 the first minute, and level 20 the next minute.
Recordings like this in my ZV-1 camera need rebalancing in Post (FCPX) of the Stereo Left/Right to around -50% (shift to left channel). I am not sure right now after these first tests (done Oct 31th at home in the garden) whether the camera is the problem because I used a 3.5 mm right-angle adaptor to hook up the Primo mics cable to the camera, that may have caused this. However the Primo mics gave perfectly balanced left/right recordings in my Olympus LS-10 field recorder.
Earbags Binaural Primo EM272 Microphone | 20201104 | Michel van der Burg | 1-memo•com
Stereo sound test with Primo EM272 external microphones plugged in the Sony ZV-1 camera.
Recordings like this in the ZV-1 camera need rebalancing in Post (FCPX) of the Stereo Left/Right to around -50% (shift to left channel). I am not sure right now after these first tests whether the camera is the problem because I may have used a 3.5 mm right-angle adaptor to hook up the Primo mics cable to the camera, that may have caused this. However the Primo mics gave perfectly balanced left/right recordings in my Olympus LS-10 field recorder. Primo Coffee Duet | 20201103 | Michel van der Burg | 1-memo•com
Indoor audio quality of the Sennheiser MKE 200 microphone on the Sony ZV-1 with varying audio volume levels , and checking background noise with this directional, super-cardioid, microphone.
HDR footage (PP10 HLG2) edited in Final Cut Pro X in a Wide Gamut-HDR library with grading of exposure, saturation, and tint using the color wheels only. Sennheiser MKE 200 Indoor Audio Review 4 | 20200926 | 1-memo.com
Testing the included furry windshield accessory of the Sennheiser MKE 200 Microphone with a gentle breeze – 19 km/h – 12 mph – this week at sunset in the polders of the Green Heart of Holland, – using the Sony ZV-1 camera with in camera volume levels of 20, and 25 respectively. Also checking background sound from this directional, super-cardioid, microphone.
Sennheiser MKE200 Windshield Review 3 | 20200924 | Michel van der Burg | 1-memo.com
