Jessie Kahnweiler’s “Dude Where’s my Chutzpah?”, a comedic web series following Jessie on her adventure to discover what it means to be Jewish, now has a trailer available online! Check it out, and find more details,here.
Paul Ratner’s Moses on the Mesa also has a trailer available online. The film is inspired by the real life of Solomon Bibo, a Jewish-German immigrant who became the governor of a Native American tribe in the Wild West. Check out the trailer here!
LA Fellow Paul Ratner recently penned a post for the Huffington Post’s Culture blog, discussing the challenge he’s faced in putting the story of Solomon Bibo on film. Bibo, or Don Solomono as he came to be called, was a Jewish governor of a Native American tribe in the Wild West era. Apart from the facts of his life, little is known of Bibo as a person.
Read the whole post here, and find out how Paul sifted through the various historical perspectives to craft this fascinating character!
A short fiction film focusing on the real-life tale of Don Solomono, a Jewish German immigrant who became the leader of a Native American tribe.
The Caveman of Atomic City
King and Angel in the Rain
Abraham
The Ballad of Don Solomono will be a short fiction film focusing on a few episodes in the real-life tale of Solomon Bibo, a Jewish immigrant who left Germany in 1869 while still a teenager to seek out the mythical “El Dorado” in America. Through incredible twists of fate, he became governor of the indigenous tribe of Acoma whose ancient pueblo (named “Sky City”) sits atop a beautiful and unassailable cliff in the middle of a New Mexico desert. Solomon became known to the Indians as “Don Solomono” and married the granddaughter of the tribe’s former governor. Solomon’s amazing story spans the Napoleonic Wars, the aftermath of the American Civil War, the building of the Santa Fe railroad, the American Indian Wars (and such famous characters as Geronimo), the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906, the Great Depression and leads all the way up to World War 2. Solomon’s descendants now live throughout the world.
The creation process, also includes filming a documentary series focusing on the process of creating the film and featuring conversations with modern Jews in the LA area, inspired by the questions that Don Solomono’s story raises. The film will talk about identity, intermarriage and dreams. The documentary series will be presented via a video blog and public screenings.
Paul Ratner was born in the former Soviet Union, and had his first interactions with indigenous people during his early childhood when his family lived in Siberia. Since moving to the US, he has continued to explore his fascination with the Native American community through film. After studying film at Cornell and Chapman Universities, Paul started working as a professional in film and television. He has worked in Hollywood and all over the world (Russia, India, Czech Republic), and made his own short films, music videos and documentaries. Currently, he is in the last stages of post-production on his documentary feature film, The Caveman of Atomic City, which portrays a fringe philosopher who lived in a cave on the territory of the Los Alamos National Lab and came up with his own theory of time and space.
