Leo Baeck Institute / YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, "The Helena Mayer Story" January 14, 2009
Helena Mayer was a Olympic Gold Medalist fencer who represented Germany in the 1936 Berlin summer games. Why would this German Jewish woman agree to bring honor to a country that had rejected her? Why would Germany want a Jew to be part of the German National Team? This documentary by Semyon Pinkhasov examines the motives for the decisions on both sides. Pinkhasov will present the film and engage in a discussion afterwards with James Traub. Mr. Pinkhasov is the former coach of the U.S. Olympic and Maccabiah fencing teams; Mr.Traub is a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, Foreign Affairs and others major publications.
18th Annual Toronto Jewish Film Festival, “What If? The Helene Mayer Story,” April 17-25, 2010
Mark R. Hasan, “Hidden Tales from 1936” April 25, 2010, review Pinkhasov’s question, however, also extends to Mayer’s motivations for agreeing to participate, to the point that, upon winning a Silver medal, she gave the Nazi salute. Was it to protect her family’s safety, or something else?
What If? is still doing the festival rounds (director Pinkhasov participated in a brief but helpful Q&A after the screening this past Wednesday), but hopefully the film will be available on home video, if not as a digital download, because it’s a story that also provokes a number of questions, and inevitably smart discussions beyond the Berlin Olympics.”
Emigre to U.S. documents extraordinary Russian lives, June 25, 2010, By Daniel Bases
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Soviet Russia's missiles and soldiers snaking through Red Square made for chilling images of a repressed society during the Cold War, but one Russian-American filmmaker is casting a new light on the period to show there was cultural life beneath the communist ice. Semyon Pinkhasov, an emigre to the United States at the height of the Cold War has made documentary films about prominent Soviet-era artisans and sport figures, who not only survived but thrived during communism's repressive rule. (Watch the video interview with Pinkhasov )