I had the amazing opportunity to attend the New York Jewish Film Festival on January 28th, 2025.
Back in 2023, Neva Tassan, my aunt, was in town and had my family and I watch a rough cut of her film documentary, The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & the Art of Survival. She gave each of us a questionnaire to fill for feedback. During the summer of 2023, Neva and her team did some massive revisions on the film. She gave me a link to the updated version. As I watched, I filled out the feedback sheet (shown below). By filling out the sheet, I got a credit!
The film took four years to conduct. Julie Rubio, director, writer and producer, met the Lempicka's twenty years ago (as of 2025). During Covid, she and Tamara de Lempicka’s great-granddaughter, Marisa de Lempika started conversing over zoom about Tamara. These conversations/interviews soon turned into a massive project involving lots of people.
As the film was being finalized, A new Broadway Musical, LEMPICKA broke through. The musical starred Edin Espinosa and Amber Iman. The musical sadly had a lot of backlash and got terrible reviews.
The documentary had its world premiere at the Mill Valley Film Festival in 2024. It had a lot of declines from lots of film festivals. Sundance was considering it, but there was a more relevant film doc that took the cake. The film was submitted late to the New York Jewish Film Festival, but it was accepted!! This festival opened up the gate for this film doc. It's gonna premiere internationally!
This was my first film festival and it didn’t disappoint. We were in the Walter Reade Theater. At the end of the screening, there was a panel that included Julie Rubio, Marisa de Lempika and Eden Espinosa. They were asked various questions about the film.
During the festival, I got to meet Julie and her husband, Blake, who also was a producer.
This trip was super fun and my first time networking with filmmakers.
Panel: Julie Rubio, Marisa De Lempica & Eden Espinosa
The fam!
The amazing Film I saw!
