News from Sandra Luckow

I received an e-mail from classmate Sandra Luckow with news and an invitation to classmates to collaborate on a project.  Here is what Sandra had to say:

I have been teaching film production (both documentary and narrative) at Yale for almost 14 years now.  I run the production arm of the Yale Summer Film Institute which is a comprehensive, intensive six week production workshop for filmmakers and performers.  Like everyone else on the planet, we have a facebook page. www.facebook.com/pages/Yale-Summer-Sessions-Filmmaking-and-Acting-in-Film/200391956176.  I am also teaching at Columbia with Dr. Annette Insdorf who as many of our classmates will recall taught Masterpieces in American Film History when were at Yale or, as we referred to it then, "Tuesday Afternoon at the Movies."  Teaching has become my income staple in order to be the kind of independent filmmaker I conceived while an undergraduate at Yale.

I am regularly in touch with Andrea Pincus, a big shot attorney at Reed Smith and a fabulous friend.  Her oldest son Jake just had his bar mitzvah and her youngest son Sam is my godson!  She allows me to be their adult bad influence,  

I am looking forward to reconnecting with more classmates at the reunion, but hopefully before.  I was stunned to see, during the memorandum at the Oscars, that my friend and fellow Branfordite George Hickenlooper '86 had passed away and it got me to thinking about making opportunities to reconnect and work with the people with whom I shared such important formative years.  I would like to offer up a feature film project to the class of 1987 to create an opportunity to produce something together.

When I was at Yale, I ran the Yale Film Society with a law student named Marion Hoogstraten Kandel.  I met and later worked with her father, Dr. Barth Hoogstraten to write his memoir, "Eyes of the Blind,"  which recounts his experience of going into hiding in 1942 Nazi-occupied Holland because as a young medical student he refused to sign a declaration of loyalty.  He was hid in plain sight by two blind middle-aged music teachers who taught him to act blind, music and what one can appreciate beyond appearances.  I have spent years adapting this memoir to a screenplay entitled, "Blind's Man Bluff."  Meryl Streep read it and sent me a note saying, "It is a wonderfully told story that I'm sure will make a compelling film -- it certainly deserves to be seen."  Anyone from the class of 1987 who would like help me and be a part of making this film, please let me know at Ojedafilms@aol.com.