A group of undergraduate students from BGSU are involved in the daunting task of producing a feature length film. Based on the stage performance of "Tikvah: Enlightment and Remembrance", the movie tells the story of the hope and survival of a Holocaust survivor. Tikvah is Hebrew for "hope".
“Tikvah is not a story of death and destruction, but of hope, enlightenment and survival," says Jose Cardenas, a faculty member in the university's Department of Telecommunications, who serves as Director of Photography on the film. The premise is about “one person’s life before, during and after the Holocaust.”
Burton Beerman is a faculty member in the College of Music, and had created the music for the original stage production of Tikvah. Beerman brought the idea of making a film of the story to Cardenas, who recommended a documentary approach to the topic. What Cardenas refers to as an "artistic documentary".
Producing the feature length film with undergraduate students was also the idea of Cardenas, In earlier efforts to introduce students to film, Cardenas has worked with students to create a short film highlighting the university's Building Dreams fundraising campaign.
Another project was a summer workshop program, where students produced short films. A recent summer's session filmed a short version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet".