NEA Funds Ginz Animation

NEA Funds Ginz Animation

The National Endowment for the Arts has awarded the Documentary Institute a grant of $30,000 for its production of The Last Flight of Petr Ginz. The film will tell the story of artistic and literary prodigy, Petr Ginz. By 14 Petr had written five novels and penned a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By 16 he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written numerous short stories and had walked to the gas chamber at Auschwitz.


Courtesy of Portland Studios

Institute co-director, Sandra Dickson says the money will be used to pay for animation. Animated sequences will be employed throughout the film to showcase Petr’s imaginative artwork and stories, particularly his novel and allegory of Hitler, A Visit from Prehistory, in which Petr wrote and illustrated the story of Kadu, a giant robotic creature that resembles a dinosaur and is used by a government official to terrorize natives in the Belgian Congo.

Portland Studios, which provided artwork for the Academy Award-nominated film, Operation Homecoming, has been selected to do the animation for the Ginz documentary.

This is the second grant awarded to the Ginz project. The Miami-based Jerome A. Yavitz Charitable Foundation has pledged $200,000 in support of the film.