Director: Abby Ginzberg | South Africa/USA | Documentary | 2014 | 70 mins
Film source: Filmmaker
Sponsor: Champlain College
Intro and Q&A with filmmaker
One of the most inspiring films in the festival, Soft Vengeance is the story of Albie Sachs, a white Jewish man who has been an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa for some six decades. His story is truly amazing: here was someone who did not need to stay, let alone fight and put his own life at risk. He was the target, finally, of a bombing in which he lost an arm. He survived and devoted his life to taking “soft vengeance”: his belief that if South Africa achieves democracy, freedom and rule of law, justice will be served. Bay Area filmmaker, Abby Ginzberg, is an American lawyer, long interested in social justice. She first met Sachs in the 1970s as he traveled in the U.S. to help lobby for support for the anti-apartheid movement. When she re-met him in 2009 in South Africa she knew this would be her next film project. Ginzberg’s film has managed to combine a gripping story with a portrait of one of the lead forces behind South Africa’s new Constitution, and who authored the landmark gay marriage decision that made South Africa the first in Africa to approve same sex marriage.
FILMMAKER BIO
Filmmaker Abby Ginzberg has been producing and directing award-winning documentary films for nearly three decades . Her work has focused on character-driven stories, racial and gender discrimination and social justice issues, and has been screened at film festivals and broadcast on public television networks nationally and internationally.
Her most recent feature-length documentary, SOFT VENGEANCE: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa, was an official selection at IFP in 2013 and premiered at Full Frame in the US and is currently traveling internationally throughout the festival circuit, where it has screened at the Berkshire International Film Festival, AFI Docs in Washington, DC, the Durban International Film Festival. It won the People’s Choice Award from the Vancouver South African Film Festival and the Audience Award for Best International Documentary from the Encounters Film Festival in South Africa.
Abby is currently in post-production on AGENTS OF CHANGE, co-produced with Frank Dawson which features actor/activist Danny Glover, sociologist and sports expert, Harry Edwards, among many others. This film seeks to tell the untold story of the civil rights movement on college campuses, particularly at San Francisco State and Cornell, as emblematic examples of protests taking place all over the United States challenging the status quo and creating demands for black studies programs and increased minority representation on campus
Abby was Consulting Producer on THE BARBER OF BIRMINGHAM, produced by Gail Dolgin and Robin Fryday, which was an Official Selection of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, was nominated for a 2012 Academy Award in the Short Documentary category and was part of the 2012 POV television series on public television.
Abby’s feature-length documentary, CRUZ REYNOSO: Sowing the Seeds of Justice won Accolade and Davey Awards and screened at the Cine las Americas, Mill Valley, Boston Latino, Chicago Latino, Santa Cruz and Havana Film Festivals. It wonthe Best Feature Documentary Award from the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. It also screened at the Human Rights Film Festival in Buenos Aires and in Montevideo, Uruguay. The film received major support from Cal Humanities and Latino Public Broadcasting.
SOUL OF JUSTICE: Thelton Henderson’s American Journey is another award winning documentary which profiles one of the first African American federal judges whose fearless efforts to make real the promise of the US Constitution for all Americans has won him praise and opposition. Winner of a Silver Gavel award from the American Bar Association and a CINE Golden Eagle, the film has been featured at film festivals and broadcast on public television stations and become a staple of Black History Month programming.
Abby has also produced numerous award-winning films documenting the successes of programs for at-risk and under served youth that deserve, but rarely get public attention. These films, whose “stars” include college bound low income students in VANGUARD IN THE VANGUARD, graduates of successful drug court programs in recovering lives, uncovering dreams and A TALE OF TWO CITIES and AmeriCorps members in EVERYDAY HEROES, co-produced with Rick Goldsmith. Without her sensitivity and her tenacity, these compelling stories would never be told.
Her work documenting the need to increase HIV screening in cities across the country has culminated in a trio of films–GET SCREENED OAKLAND; THE BRONX KNOWS and TEST MIAMI. Abby also produced the Opening Session film for the 2012 International AIDS conference in Washington, DC , entitled TURNING THE TIDE.
Profiling another unsung hero of the legal profession, Abby produced and directed DOING JUSTICE: The Life and Trials of Arthur Kinoy which portrayed civil rights lawyer Kinoy’s landmark cases which began with the Rosenberg case and continued through Watergate. The film has become a staple in law schools helping to inspire the next generation of “people’s lawyers.”
Abby’s interest in justice and her efforts to shine a spotlight on important legal themes stems from having started her career as an attorney. In 2014, Abby directed the half hour dramatic film entitled, WALK THE WALK, which is designed to jump start a conversation about how to confront and overcome the current obstacles to creating a truly diverse work force within the legal profession. The film was sponsored by the State Bar of California and the California Bar Foundation.
Abby is the President of the Berkeley Film Foundation, which has given out over $700,000 to local filmmakers in the past 6 years. She is on the Board of Advisors for The Impact Fund; the Thelton Henderson Center for Social Justice at UC Berkeley Law School and the Yale Law School Visual Advocacy Project. She has received a Champion of Justice award from the National Lawyers Guild and was selected as a Gerbode Foundation Fellow in 2008.