Six years ago, an idea was born—to write and create a short, entirely hand-crafted animated film telling the story of my grandmother, Naomi Kapel (of blessed memory), a Holocaust survivor.
This is the story of Nyosha, a ten-year-old Jewish girl living with her mother, Chipa, in the village of Wengroff, Poland. Nyosha’s dream was to buy herself a pair of shoes she especially loved. Since she didn’t have enough money, the shoemaker agreed to sell her only one shoe and promised to keep the other for her. Determined, Nyusha started working in the village, doing any job she could find, and eventually saved enough money. But the ruthless war stood between Nyusha and her dream.
During a horrific Auqution, as Nyosha stood face to face with death, in a fateful moment when her mother was torn from her and taken to the truck, she believed that her shoes were what made the Nazi soldier holding her spare her life.
A blend of animation techniques merges dreams with reality, bringing Nyusha’s personal story to life. The film is crafted using two animation techniques—stop-motion animation and traditional hand-drawn animation.
So how is a film like this actually made?
You’re invited to take a peek behind the scenes in this special video:
About three years ago, in our screen-writing class, we were asked to start thinking of an idea for a final film project.
I had an idea for a film, but I didn’t connect with the technique it required, and I didn’t know where I could find another idea that would be good enough. One morning, I opened my email and saw that my grandfather had scanned my grandmother’s personal diary (she had passed away about six years earlier) and sent it to me. I began reading through 70 pages of her journal.
As I read, I started to cry and immediately realized that the idea for my film had found me. My grandmother had always told me the story, but never in full detail. In her diary, which was filled with incredibly detailed descriptions that I could already visualize as animation in my mind, I saw the immense potential for a film.
I don’t exactly remember the first time my grandmother told me her stories, but I always knew she was a Holocaust survivor, and I personally always felt a deep connection to Holocaust stories. When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a family history project about her and her story.
Recently, one particular detail caught my attention: my grandmother once told me something that she never wrote in her diary and never mentioned in any testimony. She told me that she had witnessed her mother and brother being shot to death. Naturally, since I couldn’t find any written record of this detail, I assumed I had imagined it. But when I showed the film to my sister for the first time, she asked why that part wasn’t included. Suddenly, I realized I hadn’t imagined it—it really happened. My grandmother had likely never been able to confront that moment in front of strangers.
I decided to include the traumatic gunshot in the film.
A year after deciding to create an animated documentary film about my grandmother’s story, my filmmaking partner, Yael Dekel, joined the production. Yael specializes in traditional animation. I felt it was extremely difficult for me to be objective about my grandmother, and in order to create a story that truly worked, I had to detach myself from the personal aspect.
When Yael joined the project, we started fresh—listening to the testimonies again and structuring a narrative that could sustain a 10-minute film. Since I specialize in stop-motion animation and Yael in traditional animation, we realized we could create an interesting blend that would add another layer to the film.
For the first six months, we focused mainly on developing the plot and script, creating the storyboard (a series of illustrations to visually convey the concept), designing the atmosphere and characters, and editing the testimony. Then, we moved on to construction.
The film includes about five large sets, several smaller ones, countless miniature props, three main characters, six background figures, and one gecko. The process of building the sets, sculpting the characters, and preparing them for animation took about six months. In parallel, we worked with actors to better understand movements in preparation for the animation.
The stop-motion filming took about 5.5 months, while at the same time, Yael worked on the hand-drawn animation scenes. We are currently working on editing, sound, and final adjustments. We encountered a challenge when we realized that my grandmother’s recorded testimony was incomplete. Since we had no other choice, we had to work with the limited materials available to us. Eventually, we concluded that we needed to introduce an additional voice to fill in the missing details of the story. We decided on the voice of a child speaking Yiddish. With the help of Ronen Belzam, the final project producer at Sapir, we found a young Haredi girl who spoke fluent Yiddish. Directing her was quite difficult for me, mainly because I don’t understand a word of Yiddish. In the end, I recited the sentences together with her, and we achieved great results.
For me, creating this film is a form of fulfillment. It’s hard to believe that less than three years ago, something that existed only in my mind and imagination suddenly became tangible and real.
Through the immense intensity that this project required, I feel that I went through a long and important process of learning and growth. Dealing with such a heavy subject forced me to find a counterbalance to maintain some lightness—something that was essential for staying sane.
I worked two jobs and also started specializing in 3D animation. I believe that these side engagements gave me the strength to keep going.
I had one particularly emotional experience.
One evening, I was struggling to edit my grandmother’s texts, unable to connect her words with the narration of the young girl. Nothing seemed to work, and feeling frustrated and confused, I went to bed.
The next morning, I woke up startled—my grandmother had appeared in my dream and told me exactly what sentence to add right before the child’s narration began: “…I was 10 years old…”
I rushed to my computer, and the sentence fit perfectly into the timeline—like a glove. It was perfect.
The film will have its pre-premiere screening at the Cinema South Festival, which will take place on June 10–14 at the Sderot Cinematheque. Anyone interested is welcome to visit the film’s website, where the trailer, behind-the-scenes photos, and the full story of my grandmother will soon be available.
