Buddy Pictures Inc.

Buddy Pictures Inc. is a Chicago-based film production company working to produce "About Face: The Story of the Jewish Refugee Soldiers of WWII," as well as a visual history archive of veterans interviews, in conjunction with Beach Street Educational Films Foundation. To date, we have completed more than 200 interviews with veterans. We will also be traveling to Normandy, France in June of 2004 to film the 60th anniversary of D-Day. We have begun the post production process and hope to complete the film by late 2004.

Steve Karras - Director/Co-Writer/Producer

Steve is co-founder of Beach Street Educational Films Foundation and Buddy Pictures Inc. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a degree in Film Communications, Steve has ten years of production experience, having worked on commercials, music videos and feature-length films. His extensive research of Jewish WWII veterans led him to a large contingent of German and Austrian Jewish refugees who served as Allied soldiers in the Second World War. The similarities in their accounts inspired the urgent undertaking of the film, "About Face" With the assistance of Julia Rath and Rose Lizarraga, he has since conducted over one thousand hours all over the U.S. and Canada.

Most recently, in addition to "About Face," Steve has interviewed numerous world-renowned musicians for documentary pieces and DVD compilations. Steve is also an accomplished musician and vocalist and has recorded two CDs. He currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Rose Lizarraga - Co-Director/Co-Writer/Producer

Rose is currently co-directing, co-writing and producing the documentary film, "About Face." She has also assisted Steve with conducting interviews, including those with renowned historians, Joseph Persico and Dr. Michael Berenbaum, completed extensive WWII research for the project in England and the U.S. and managed the fundraising effort for the film.

Rose is also the founder of girlBite Productions, which develops both feature and documentary films as well as programming for television. Rose was an associate producer for the documentary, "Freedom's Fury," about the 1956 Hungarian revolution, which is currently making a tour of the film festivals.

Prior to working in film, she was an advertising executive at Leo Burnett and Foote, Cone & Belding and most recently, a writer/editor for Modern Luxury Inc. publishers of CS, Front Desk and Angeleno magazines. She has also worked as a small business consultant developing marketing and public relations strategies for new products and services. Rose graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a degree in English and Political Science. She currently resides in Chicago, Illinois with her husband, Dave Scherer.

John Cale - Composer

John Cale whose footprints are stamped all over the last three and a half decades of musical history has composed the original score for About Face.

Born in 1942, in Garnant, South Wales, Cale displayed enviable musical talent on both the piano and viola. From 1961 to 1963, he was a student at Goldsmiths College London, where he began to immerse himself in both avant-garde and electronic music. After a meeting with Aaron Copland in 1963, he won a scholarship to the Boston University Orchestra's Tanglewood summer school - and by the autumn of that year, he was a resident in New York. It was there that he collaborated with the cutting-edge composers John Cage and LaMonte Young.

In 1964, Cale met Lou Reed and the pair began work on a project that soon became known as The Velvet Underground. Andy Warhol grafted the band's visionary music onto the heady, frantically experimental scene that was taking root at the legendary Factory. In the late '60s, early '70s, he worked as a producer and musician on some of the most pivotal records in the rock canon, including Nico: 'The Marble Index.' - The Stooges: 'The Stooges,' and Patti Smith: 'Horses.'

During the 1980s, Cale released the legendarily bleak, 'Music For A New Society'. Among his work from this period was 'The Falklands Suite' (1988), which drew on four Dylan Thomas poems, and formed part of 1989's 'Words For The Dying' album.

In 1990, in the wake of Andy Warhol's death, Cale reignited his partnership with Lou Reed on the elegiac album, 'Songs For Drella' - and in 1993, The Velvet Underground reunited for a six-week European tour. Three years later came Cale's first pop-based album in more than a decade: the acclaimed 'Walking On Locusts,' which featured both Mo Tucker and Talking Heads' David Byrne.

The next chapter in Cale's musical career began with the release of 'John Cale 5 tracks' in May 2003 followed by Hobosapiens, which was released in 2004.

Dr. Julia Wally Rath - Executive Producer

Julia W. Rath is the president of Beach Street Education Films Foundation, which she co-founded with Steve Karras in November 1999. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago and works as project manager, researcher, fundraiser and consultant. Dr. Rath is an expert on oral history and has taught interviewing and research skills at the Fordham University Graduate Center, in Tarrytown, New York. Her father left Germany in 1936 and served out WWII as a sergeant/draughtsman with the British Army in Palestine; her uncle escaped Germany only to return to Europe with the U.S. Armed Forces to serve in the infantry and interrogate prisoners of war.

Julia has worked extensively on conducting interviews and fundraising for "About Face" as well maintaining and continuing to grow the archive of interviews with the veterans. Dr. Rath is also an accomplished still photographer. She currently resides in Skokie, Illinois. Beach Street Educational Films Foundation is a registered not-for-profit organization with 501(c) 3 status which was organized to develop the About Face documentary as well as the growing visual history archive of more than 200 veterans interviews.

Tonia Kim - Associate Producer

Tonia is currently conducting WWII and Holocaust-related research for "About Face" at various archives around the country, including the USHMM and the Leo Baeck Institute. She is also researching music licensing for the film and has assisted in numerous fundraising efforts. Tonia, a graduate of University of Wisconsin and Chicago-Kent College of Law, focused her studies in Intellectual Property and legal writing. Prior to law school, Tonia worked as a photographer's assistant at a multimedia productions company, where she learned various aspects of production for commercials and print ads.

While attending law school, Tonia worked as an editorial assistant and copy editor at the Modern Luxury publishing group. Upon graduation, she continued working as a contributing writer, while also launching her own jewelry company, Toki Collection, LLC. Tonia had a widely successful first year of operations with Toki Collection, establishing accounts across the country including Henry Bendel, Ron Herman on Melrose and P45. She was recently named one of eight designers to keep an eye on by the Chicago Tribune. Tonia resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Stephanie Thompson - Associate Producer

Stephanie Thompson has conducted extensive film, document and photo research at the Imperial War Museum, the USHMM and NARA for the "About Face" film project. She has also worked with the interactive consulting company Rocket Surgeon, to develop a website for "About Face" and worked extensively to secure funding and grants for the film.

Stephanie is former President/Founder of Cradles of Distinction, Ltd, an upscale, furniture and design store for infants and children in Chicago. Stephanie was intricately involved in every aspect of the business including sales, marketing, management, operations as well as business development and planning. Cradles became a leader in its industry, expanding into mail order, Internet sales, private label manufacturing, and multi-store locations. Stephanie sold the business in 2002 to pursue other passions and career interests.

Prior to Cradles, Stephanie spent 15 years working in marketing, manufacturing and public relations. She has a BSBA in Marketing from University of Denver. In addition to About Face, Stephanie is currently working on a book that combines her photographs and essays from a 5-month trip to Asia. Stephanie resides in Chicago, Illinois and San Francisco, California.

Hans Koch - Associate Producer

Hans Koch has developed marketing and publicity materials for "About Face," In addition, he has managed numerous fundraising efforts. He is currently working to help secure distribution for the project. Koch co-founded Hark Films in 2002, a firm offering strategic direction for successful independent filmmakers. Koch has served as Executive Producer of several (documentary and feature) film projects.

Previously, Koch was Chairman and CEO of Abele Information Systems, Inc./Owners.com, Inc. from 1995-2001. Koch has been a lecturer at University of California's Haas School of Business and numerous symposiums. Koch has been featured on various broadcast services including MSNBC and NPR's "Morning Edition," as well as more than 250 local and national print publications like the San Francisco Chronicle and The Wall Street Journal.

Koch holds a B.A. from the University of Michigan and is currently a Board member of the Samuel Zell and Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurship Studies (University of Michigan Business School). He resides in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Michael Berenbaum

Dr. Michael Berenbaum (Ph.D., Florida State University, 1975) is the former president of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, the former Director of the United States Holocaust Research Institute at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the former Project Director for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. He has published extensively on the Holocaust and on the condition of Jewry in such books as The World Must Know and After Tragedy and Triumph.

He also has an extensive filmography. He was co-producer of One Survivor Remembers: The Gerda Weissman Klein Story, which was recognized with an Academy Award, an Emmy Award and the Cable Ace Award, and historical consultant on The Shoah Foundation's documentary, The Last Days, which won an Academy Award for the best feature length documentary of 1998. In 2001, Dr. Berenbaum was chief historical consultant for HBO's Conspiracy, recently nominated for 10 Emmy awards; NBC's Uprising (aired in November 2001); and The History Channel's The Holocaust: The Untold Story, which won the CINE Golden Eagle Award and a Silver Medal at the US International Film and Video Festival. He was the executive producer, writer and historian for a film entitled Desperate Hours on the Holocaust in Turkey, which premiered in September at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

BulletProof Film - Editor/Co-Producer

BulletProof Film Inc., a full-service film and video company based in Chicago, was established in 1995 to address the production and post-production needs of Chicago's promising independent film and video scene. Besides producing their own award-winning documentary programming and fiction films, BulletProof has expanded to a global vision that includes collaborations with filmmakers such as Jon Jost, the father of American independent film; Franci Slak, whose film "When I Close My Eyes" was an official selection for the Academy Awards from Slovenia; Moroccan filmmaker Hakim Belabbes, whose film "Threads", was an official selection at the Venice and Chicago film festivals; and Dinora Azmova, a screenwriter from Uzbekistan developing a feature film about Isadora Duncan and Sergei Esenin.

BulletProof Film's mission is to create quality programming that advances the art of film through the use of both traditional and innovative technology, such as digital video and high definition video. Our programming addresses the need for diverse voices in fiction, experimental and documentary filmmaking.

Special Thanks

Buddy Pictures Inc. and the "About Face" film project would like to thank the following people and organizations without which this film would not be possible:

The Otto and Fran Walter Foundation
Illinois Humanities Council
Edward Randall Thompson Jr. Memorial Fund
Holland & Knight Charitable Foundation, Inc.
Holland & Knight, LLC
The Thompson Family
Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund
Gerda Weismann Klein
Dr. Michael Berenbaum
Beach Street Educational Films Foundation
Maurice Kanbar
Bulletproof Film

For additional information on "About Face," please contact:

Rose Lizarraga
Producer
Buddy Pictures Inc.
1249 W. Webster
Chicago, IL 60614
312.961.3905
aboutfacefilms@aol.com