Our documentary film by director Rick Minnich and author Peter-Hugo Scholz († 2019) will soon be officially screened at a festival for the first time. We are delighted to finally be able to show the production to a wide audience. Sadly, the protagonist Martin Greenfield recently passed away. But we look back on a wonderful experience and are grateful that we were able to get to know Mr. Greenfield and accompany him (with the camera) for a while.

Martin Greenfield learned to sew when he mended shirts for the Gestapo in Auschwitz and later made suits for US presidents and stars from New York. We were lucky enough to be able to tell his story in a documentary. Our film has now also been selected for this year's Jewish Film Festival Berlin/ Brandenburg selected. "The Presidents' Tailor - From Auschwitz to the White House" will be shown on the big screen on two dates in Berlin from June 18-23, 2024 as part of the festival. Together with director and co-producer Rick Minnich, we are delighted to be there to share Martin Greenfield's moving story. At the beginning of April, we learned that Martin Greenfield had passed away at the age of 95 surrounded by his family in New York. Our deepest sympathy goes out to his family and all his loved ones.

The film

Martin Greenfield survived the Holocaust and became America's greatest tailor. Maxmilian Greenfield learned to sew when he was fifteen years old, mending shirts for SS soldiers in Auschwitz. Four years later, he reinvented himself as the American Martin Greenfield and made suits for the former general and later US president Dwight D. Eisenhower, who liberated him from Buchenwald in 1945. The Presidents' Tailor is a documentary about how one man transformed himself into another against all odds - from Auschwitz to the White House. With his infectious smile, ingenuity and insistence on "quality with intrinsic values", Martin Greenfield quickly rose from his humble beginnings as an errand boy at the GGG menswear factory in Brooklyn to become the preferred tailor for US presidents and celebrities. But his past left its mark on him and his family. His son Jay joined our film team on a search for clues in Europe. At the same time, the tailor's shop in New York is undergoing a generational change.

Outlook/ Review

We hope to be able to present the film at other international festivals in the near future. In addition NewDocs The film will be distributed in the course of the year so that it can be exploited internationally on television. It took us a few years to complete it. We originally interviewed Martin Greenfield for the first time in 2017 for the MDR Lebensläufe format, which later led to the idea of developing an independent documentary together with author Peter-Hugo Scholz and co-producer and director Rick Minnich. Our filming and production processes were hampered in part by Martin Greenfield's state of health, but also by the coronavirus pandemic. We are therefore all the more pleased to be able to show the result at festivals. Incidentally, in 2021 the film won the prize at DOK Preview Germany as part of the DOK Leipzig Festivals. We would therefore like to take this opportunity to thank D-Facto Motionwhich provided a post-production prize worth 10,000 euros. The film was also supported by the Thuringian State Chancellery and the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.

The biggest thanks go to Martin Greenfield and his family, especially his sons Jay and Tod.

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