Katherine Fogler and Jeff Klyne in "The Boy in the Woods" which makes U.S. premier at Miami Jewish Film Festival. (Photos Courtesy of Myriad Pictures.)
As an 11-year-old Jewish child in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, Holocaust survivor Maxwell Smart lost his entire family. However, he survived by hiding and fending for himself in the forests of Poland.
The emotional story of Smart's harrowing experiencing hiding from the Nazis is dramatized in the Canadian film, "The Boy in the Woods," directed by Rebecca Snow and based on the memoir of the same name by Smart, who became an artist and lives in Canada. The film stars Jeff Klyne from "WandaVision" and "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" as the young Maxwell Smart.
"The Boy in the Woods" makes its U.S. premiere at the Miami Jewish Film Festival's upcoming 27th edition. It screens at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20 at the Michael-Ann Russell Jewish Community Center. It will also screen at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 21 at Miami Theater Center in Miami Shores.
Snow, who is expected to be in attendance for the film's special premiere event with Smart to introduce the film and participate in a Q & A afterward, stressed the urgency of screening the film during this time in history.
Keff Klyne as Maxwell Smart in "The Boy in the Woods,"which makes U.S. premiere at Miami Jewish Film Festival. (Photos Courtesy of Myriad Pictures.)
"It is a film that highlights a warning from history," said Snow. "There's a dramatic rise in antisemitism, a rise in Islamophobia and other race -based hate crimes, and I think this film can serve as a warning from history that unchecked things can escalate to really dramatic degrees, and we have to do everything we can to eliminate antisemitism, Islamophobia and other race based crimes."
For Snow, "The Boy in the Woods" is her first dramatic feature film. She is mainly a documentary filmmaker who made a documentary in 2019 called "Cheating Hitler: Surviving the Holocaust," featuring three Holocaust survivors, including Smart.
Snow, who immediately thought Smart's story should be made into a movie when she read his memoir, spent a year working with him for the documentary.
"I interviewed him extensively for hours and hours in Miami, where I first met him," she said. "He lives in Montreal, but he spends a lot of time in Miami in the winters. We then traveled to Israel where we visited Yad Vashem, Tel Aviv and other places. I even went to Ukraine where his story took place."
Richard Armitage and Jeff Klyne in "The Boy in the Woods." (Photos Courtesy of Myriad Pictures.)
Snow continued: "I spent a good year really taking his story for the documentary, and during that year, it became clear to me that there was going to be another way to tell the story and that was going to be as a drama, so two years later I started writing the screenplay adapted from his memoir. "
Snow said: "The thing that was so interesting about Maxwell's story is what was happening in this young artist's mind while he's going through this serious trauma through childhood."
"We don't think about stories of people hiding in the woods during the Holocaust as much," she said. "We's seen films about people in concentration camps. We've seen films of people in the ghettos. There are the stories of people hiding in other people's houses like Anne Frank. The idea of an orphaned boy hiding in the woods from the forces of evil that was like a grim fairy tale."
Snow said she is thrilled that the film is making its U.S. premiere at the Miami Jewish Film Festival.
"The first time I met Maxwell was in Miami, so it's a nice full circle moment for me that we're actually screening this in Miami and to be there with Max," she said.
Snow said the film may appeal to younger people as it's told through the eyes of a preteen boy.
Jeff Klyne as Maxwell Smart in the woods during "The Boy in the Woods," (Photos Courtesy of Myriad Pictures.)
"I'm really hoping this film can help educate people a little bit and get people interested in that period of time," she said.
Smart, now 93, said in an interview that seeing the film was very emotional for him, and thanks Snow for making it.
"I had never dreamt in my entire life that my horrible story would ever be in print or in a movie," he said. "I was very proud that my book was published by HarperCollins, and I was also and I was also very proud of Rebecca Snow for thinking of me with this book and making it into a film"
Smart hopes people can learn the dangers of hate and antisemitism while watching the film.
"Hatred was so severe, including hatred for Jewish children," he said. "No children should be ever killed. A million and a half children were killed in the Holocaust, and this should never happen again."
"The Boy in the Woods' premiers at 7:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 20 at the Michael-Ann Russell JCC. It will also screen at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 21 at Miami Theater Center. For tickets and information, go to miamijewishfilmfestival.org. The 27th Miami Jewish Film Festival runs from Jan.11-25.
