“The Last flight of Petr Ginz,” a 2012 documentary co-directed by Churchill Roberts, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) Media Production, Management, and Technology professor, was recently screened at the Tsiolkovsky International Space Film Festival in Kaluga, Russia. The festival features new films on space exploration as well as space-related science and art.

The Petr Ginz documentary, co-directed with Sandra Dickson, is based on the true story of a Czech Jewish child prodigy who at age 14 was sent to Nazi ghetto-labor camp Theresienstadt and later to the Auschwitz concentration camp. By age 14, he had written five novels and a diary about the Nazi occupation of Prague. By age 16, he had produced 120 drawings and paintings, edited an underground magazine in the Theresienstadt Ghetto, and written numerous short stories. Ginz was killed in a gas chamber at Auschwitz before his 17^th birthday.

Much of Ginz’s story was unknown until the 2003 Space Shuttle Columbia tragedy. Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon, a member of the mission, brought Ginz’s drawing, “Moon Landscape,” with him on board. The publicity surrounding the Columbia flight and its tragic end led to the discovery of Ginz’s diary and additional artwork and short stories in a Prague attic.

Roberts has served as co-director/co-producer of several documentaries including, “Giving Up the Canal” (1990), “Campaign for Cuba” (1992), “Last Days of the Revolution” (1994), “Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore” (2001), Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power (2006), Angel of Ahlem (2007) and “The Curse of the Terracotta Warriors” (2020).

Posted: June 6, 2022
Category: College News
Tagged as: Churchill Roberts