They Called Me Mayer July

Canadian premiere of Paint What You Can Remember, Tuesday April 20

Paint What You Remember Tuesday April 20 at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival! At noon, with Shawna Silver, Mayer's granddaughter presenting.
http://www.tjff.com/film-info.php?id=66&sortby=date&filterby=

Trailer for Paint What You Can Remember

Lovely Video Preview for Slawomir Grunberg's film about Mayer.

Paint What You Can Remember, world premiere of film

Bravo Slawomir Grunberg and Katja Reszke on the success of Paint What You Can Remember. The world premiere just took place at the film festival at Kazimierz Dolny. People from Opatow came to the premier and the town wants to make Mayer an honorary citizen.

Here is a review from Gazeta Lublin, August 8, 2009
Mayera podróż w czasie, by Danuta Majka  

Paint What You Can Remember (Namaluj co pamietasz), new film just released

Slawomir Grunberg (LogTV) has just completed a 30-minutes documentary about Mayer. Copies can be purchased directly from LogTV or at The Jewish Museum's gift shop. Here is the synopsis.

Mayer Kirshenblatt left Poland for Canada in 1934. Fifty-six years later, at age 73 Mayer began to paint his childhood memories of prewar life in Opatow. Before Second World War Opatow (or Apt in Yiddish) had 10 thousand inhabitants, more than half of them Jewish. Nowadays, little is remembered of the shtetl character of the town and of its Jewish population wiped out entirely by the Holocaust.

When in the summer of 2007 91 year old Mayer came to Opatow and organized a public showing of the images he paints, he was welcomed with incredible enthusiasm. The town officials were astounded by the reaction of the crowd, as no event had ever attracted so many people, who simply could not get enough of Mayer’s stories about a lost Jewish world. Today, there are no Jews living in Opatow and there are hardly any signs of its Jewish heritage.

Video

Book launch: We had a great turnout for the book launch at the JCC SF's Taube Center for Jewish LIfe on September 5, 2007. Video of Mayer showing and talking about his paintings in conversation with Barbara.

Conversation with Artist: What a thrill to talk about the paintings in the exhibition, completely surrounded by them, on the day of the Magnes opening. Video of Mayer talking about the paintings in conversation with Barbara.

Guide by Cell: Listen to the Guide by Cell tour of the exhibition and book (just turn to the page with the painting).

Mayer on YouTube: From Jack Kuper's Shtetl, a documentary about Mayer Kirshenblatt and his paintings. Order DVD from Cinema Guild. Also on YouTube, University of California Press trailer.

Book launch: We had a great turnout for the book launch at the JCC SF's Taube Center for Jewish LIfe on September 5, 2007. Video of Mayer showing and talking about his paintings in conversation with Barbara.