Burbank, CA – Jonah, a short film by Michael Maschina will screen at the Burbank International Film Festival. The film will screen as part of the Foreign Shorts selection at 12:00pm on Sunday, September 10th, 2017. The Burbank International Film Festival runs from September 6th through September 10th 2017 at the AMC 16 in Downtown Burbank. Tickets for the screening may be purchased on the Festival website.
Jonah (FB: ), produced by Ruma Entertainment, was inspired by the events of August 27th, 2015, when the Austrian police found the corpses of seventy one refugees abandoned in a lorry parked on the side of the street in Burgenland State. Seventy two years earlier, Europe faced the horror of more than six millions of Jewish man and women slaughtered by the madness of the Nazi-Fasci system. Today, Europe is facing the biggest human tragedy since the time of World War II. The migrants that have reached Europe in 2015 count more than a million. These people all share the desire to escape war and find a better life. Hundreds of thousands of women, children, and men cross the Mediterrenean Sea, the mountains of Turkey, the woods of Albania and the Hungarian plains. They rely on any means or form of transportation just to make it to Europe and it is this desperation that throws them in the hands of human traffickers.
Jonah wants to make the audience aware of this tragedy: the tragedy of war and the one of the loss of roots when fleeing one’s own country. A tragedy of this proportions must not encounter neither national nor ethnic barriers. Jonah wants to let us all remember that if today thousands of people are trying to get into Austria in search for freedom, yesterday thousands of people were fleeing the same country to save their lives.
Jonah was written and directed by Michael Maschina. Michael was born in Vienna, Austria. His enthusiasm for filmmaking started while he was a child, and he shot his first movies with a handheld camera with his friends, trying to remake his favorite movie. His first short movie, Sic, was nominated to film festivals around the world. The film stars Daniela Mutafova and Heide Maria Hager.
For more information on Jonah and the Burbank International Film Festival, including a full screening schedule, updates, and announcements, visit the BIFF website. Tickets may be purchased through the BIFF website or ItsMySeat.