Manchester, CT Native's EMMY (R) Nominated Film on CPTV April 24

Manchester, CT Native LeeAnn Dance’s EMMY ® - Nominated Film Makes Debut on Connecticut Public Broadcasting

“My Dear Children” is the First In-Depth, Scholarly Film About Anti-Jewish Massacres in Eastern Europe Following World War I

Wednesday, April 24 at 8 pm on CPTV Spirit

Manchester, Connecticut native LeeAnn Dance’s EMMY ®-nominated* documentary “My Dear Children” follows one woman’s quest to unravel a family mystery, in the process revealing a little-known humanitarian tragedy. A story of motherhood, survival, love, and sacrifice, the one-hour film premieres on Connecticut Public Broadcasting’s Spirit Channel on Wednesday, April 24 at 8 pm (check channels at https://cptv.org/schedule/cable-channels/).

LeeAnn Dance, a graduate of Manchester High School, is an award-winning television producer and groundbreaking investigative reporter who began her career more than 25 years ago. She has worked as a freelancer in East Africa and as a producer with CNN’s investigative and documentary unit. She now has her own boutique production company outside Washington, D.C. “My Dear Children” is her first independent documentary production.

The pogroms in the years following the Russian Revolution of 1917 killed some 250,000 or more Jews and marked the beginning of the near-obliteration of Jewish life from an area of the world to which nearly 80% of the world’s Jewry can trace its roots. “My Dear Children” tells the story of the pogroms using the rare memoir of a survivor, Feiga Shamis, interspersed with her granddaughter’s journey to discover this under explored period of Jewish history. Commentary from historians and family members, archival footage and photos, and Feiga’s own words translated from Yiddish offer insight into what scholars now call “the holocaust of its day.”

“Discovering Feiga’s story as it related to my own life was a uniquely personal filmmaking experience in my career,” explains LeeAnn Dance. “I’m thrilled that my parents and friends in Connecticut are now able to see it on their local public television station.”

In the film, Feiga’s granddaughter Judy Favish, a 61-year-old South African Jew, journeys from South Africa to Poland, Ukraine and New York to trace the events that tore apart not only her family, but also tens of thousands of others. It’s a story shared by Jews the world over. Judy’s paternal grandmother, a mother of 12, was driven to make a choice no mother should ever have to make and send two of her youngest children, just eight and ten years old, to an orphanage a continent away. But it was a choice that ensured their survival. Years later she wrote a letter to the two children she sent away, trying to explain to them why she made the decision she did. By then, neither child could read Yiddish any longer. Judy’s father refused to speak about his past, but after his death his family had the letter translated into a little book Shalom, Shalom My Dear Children, the basis for the documentary.

“My Dear Children” helps Jews everywhere understand their connection to this history and honors the countless victims. Feiga’s story is a testament to the consequences of unchecked anti-Semitism at a time of increasing anti-Semitism in the U.S. and elsewhere.

South Florida PBS distributes the film nationally to public television stations via American Public Television. *In December 2018, the film was nominated by the NATAS Suncoast chapter for an Emmy ® award for Documentary – Historical. Broadcasts to date reach nearly 80% USTVHH including airings on the national public television WORLD channel in September 2018. The film was screened at the Washington Jewish Film Festival, the Harrisburg Jewish Film Festival (Best Documentary) and the Southampton Jewish Film Festival, among others.

“My Dear Children” is co-produced and directed by LeeAnn Dance and Cliff Hackel. LeeAnn Dance is executive producer and writer; Cliff Hackel is editor.

About South Florida PBS

South Florida PBS is Florida’s largest public media company, including Public Broadcasting stations WXEL-TV, serving the Palm Beaches and WPBT2, serving Miami-Dade and Broward counties. South Florida PBS connects organizations and institutions across our region and preserves South Florida's history. Leading the way in this global society, South Florida PBS serves diverse communities from Key West to the Sebastian Inlet and from the Atlantic Ocean west to Lake Okeechobee. South Florida PBS is committed to creating and presenting unique arts, education and cultural heritage programming, and serves as a model for telling unique local stories across a variety of digital media platforms. National productions presented to public television stations by South Florida PBS include James Patterson’s Kid Stew, Battleground Everglades, Changing Seas, and Blue Chip Kids. For more information, visit http://www.southfloridapbs.org/home/.

About APT:

American Public Television (APT) is the leading syndicator of high-quality, top-rated programming to the nation’s public television stations. For more than 10 years, APT distributed one-third or more of the top 100 highest-rated public television titles in the U.S. Founded in 1961, among its 250 new program titles per year, APT programs include prominent documentaries, performance, news and current affairs programs, dramas, how-to programs, children’s series and classic movies. America’s Test Kitchen From Cook’s Illustrated, Cook’s Country, AfroPoP, Rick Steves’ Europe, Chris Kimball’s Milk Street Television, Front and Center, Doc Martin, Nightly Business Report, Midsomer Murders, A Place to Call Home, Lidia’s Kitchen, Globe Trekker, New Orleans Cooking with Kevin Belton, Simply Ming, and P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home are a sampling of APT’s programs, considered some of the most popular on public television. APT licenses programs internationally through its APT Worldwide service. Now in its 13th year, Create®TV — featuring the best of public television's lifestyle programming — is distributed by American Public Television. APT also distributes WORLD™, public television’s premier news, science and documentary channel. To find out more about APT’s programs and services, visit APTonline.org

#####