Holocaust Survivor’s Brave Story Told in SBIFF Screening of “Watching Walter”
Alissa Orozco
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – The 41st annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival showcased over 100+ movies, documentaries, and short films – including 17-minute narrative short Watching Walter. The historical fiction drama tells the true story of a Holocaust survivor, detailing his life through being a young boy being taken by the Nazis and fast forwarding to his elder years repairing watches in Philadelphia.
The Watching Walter crew joined your News Channel to talk about the film and the real-life Walter.
The film’s writer, Mark Dylan Brown, says Walter was a real person who lived and worked in his childhood neighborhood in Philadelphia. Brown says over the years he grew more interested in Walter’s story and more determined to share his life with the world.
Walter was 15-years-old was he was kidnapped by Nazi officers and sent to Stutthof concentration camp, the crew details. There, he was forced to repair stolen watches and turn them into Nazi memorabilia.
“A lot of survivors go to their grave with a story. They don’t share it with their children,” Brown explains. “Walter didn’t have any children, but he still wanted his story to be told, which is rare. And I think we have to seize that moment if you have the opportunity.”
The film was screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival this past week and the crew says it was great to see audience reaction to such an important story.
“What I love about screening the film to audiences is sitting in there and just feeling the energy, you know, feeling people react. There are several moments in the film that are, you know, that we hope for audible reactions. And when we get those gasps or those just little laugh here and there, we know we have the audience,” says film director Mitch Yapko. “And the audience at the Santa Barbara Film Festival was just, they were active, and they were present, and it was wonderful.”
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