Progress Update

We’ve been working hard on the film since the beginning of the year, up through the recent filming and fundraising trip and wanted to give an update on where Living History is right now. We paused after Gerda’s passing in January, very sad to lose her and at the same time feeling her presence with us every step of the way. Over the last months, we’ve been putting most of our attention into scripting, fundraising, and preparing for the recent trip to Chicago, Madison, NY and Boston. We attended Gerda’s memorial, hosted by the University of Wisconsin in Madison where she taught. It was a beautiful celebration of Gerda’s life with stories and remembrances from family, friends, colleagues, and students. After the weekend, we filmed interviews in Chicago and then went on to Cambridge for a few days of archival research at Radcliff’s Schlesinger Library. Then back to NYC where we filmed several interviews and also NYC locations. During this part of the trip, we met with respected documentary directors and producers to discuss the development of the film, held fundraising meetings, and presented the film at a salon hosted by one of our partners, The Open Future Institute. We’ve been thrilled to receive such positive responses and support for the project – it’s energized the next steps. All in all, this has been a tremendously productive few months. We are still in production with more interviews to film in the US and Europe. Our main focus now is to raise funds quickly to be able to finish the filming and move into post-production/editing. We’ve been invited to premiere Living History at an international women historians conference in May 2014. It will coincide with the 40th anniversary of the first graduating class in women’s history at Sarah Lawrence College, which Gerda established. Contingent on funding, we hope to be able to complete the film by then. As we move forward determinedly, we welcome creative ideas and actions to help reach our goal of finishing the film in the next year. And any financial contributions are very welcome too!