Prof. Lise Raven Presents "Kinderwald"
October 3, 2013
Rural Pennsylvania, 1854 – two young German boys go missing in a deep forest. Strangers from their community, who once thought of the boys’ family as outsiders, now come from across the state to scour the woods and hills. Donations pour in and despite all odds, the parents hold fast to their belief that the boys will be found alive. This is the story of Film & Video Professor Lise Raven’s new feature western film, Kinderwald, and she is inviting students and faculty to a series of free screenings from Oct. 8 through Oct. 11 at the URBN Annex Screening Room (3401 Filbert St., Philadelphia).
Kinderwald will be screening Oct. 8 at 7:30 p.m., Oct. 9 at 11:00 a.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Oct. 11 at 12:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Raven will be present for a Q&A session after every screening. She directed Kinderwald and co-wrote its script with FrankBrückner.“I was researching fairy tales about children lost in the woods and I came across the true story of The Lost Children of the Alleghenies,” says Raven. “I realized that the story is Hansel and Gretel from the parent’s point of view. The children are missing! Who is at fault? It's as burning a topic today as it was in 1854. I loved the idea of setting it in a time before Amber Alerts and faces on milk cartons. People have to rely on their community.”
The film was made with a creative grant Raven received from the Drexel University Office of Research. She shot Kinderwald with the state-of-the-art Red One digital cinema camera used in films such as Blue Valentine and The Hobbit. Raven filmed Kinderwald in Lancaster Country, Pennsylvania for three weeks starting in September 2012 and completed editing on the project in March 2013.