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Picture of Naomi Pfefferman

Naomi Pfefferman

Holocaust legacy drives ‘Enemies’ genocide film

Filmmaker Rob Lemkin’s most famous relative is the late Raphael Lemkin, a Polish attorney who spent his life crusading against mass murder and who invented the term “genocide” to describe what the Nazis had done to the Jews, including 40 members of his family.

The second Lemkin’s Genocide story frames the ‘Enemies’

Filmmaker Rob Lemkin’s most famous relative is the late Raphael Lemkin, a Polish attorney who spent his life crusading against mass murder and who invented the term “genocide” to describe what the Nazis had done to the Jews, including 40 members of his family. Rob Lemkin never knew Raphael Lemkin, a distant cousin who died before Rob was born. But the elder Lemkin’s legacy has motivated much of the filmmaker’s work, notably his documentary “Enemies of the People,” an exposé on the Cambodian genocide that claimed two-million lives during the Pol Pot regime of the 1970s. Co-authored with Teth Sambath, the groundbreaking film – which culminates with a confession by Pol Pot’s second-in-command, Nuon Chea – is short-listed for the Academy Award and has received a Writers Guild Award nomination.

Capturing Life: The Tree in Photographs

On car trips as a young girl, Francoise Reynaud traveled through the French countryside, captivated whenever she saw a single tree alone at the side of the road or in the middle of a field.

Lovitz, lies and Torah

“I hate lying,” Jon Lovitz, the comedian, actor and comedy club owner, said without a touch of humor in his voice. “I just can’t stand it. I don’t see the advantage of it. It makes me physically ill.” It’s the reason, he said, that he has become something of a specialist in portraying characters who are truth-challenged, or, in his words, “sleazy.” He was Tommy Flanagan, president of Pathological Liars Anonymous, on “Saturday Night Live”; the guy on “Seinfeld” who fibs about having cancer, then dies in a car crash; a loudmouth baseball scout who steals scenes from Tom Hanks in “A League of Their Own”; the voice of an obnoxious movie reviewer in the animated series “The Critic”; and the father, in the film “Rat Race,” who tells his family they are on a minivan “vacation” when he is actually trying to win $2 million in a cross-country dash.

Lovitz on lying, the Talmud and ‘Casino Jack’

“I hate lying,” Jon Lovitz, the comedian, actor and comedy club owner said without a touch of humor in his voice. “I just can’t stand it. I don’t see the advantage of it. It makes me physically ill.”

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