EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED with Liev Schreiber
Director: Liev Schreiber
Writer: Jonathan Safran Foer (novel), Liev Schreiber (screenplay)
Cinematographer: Matthew Libatique
Cast: Elijah Wood, Eugene Hutz, Boris Leskin
Running Time: 106 min

Based on the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything is Illuminated tells the story of a young man’s quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off the map by the Nazi invasion. Jonathan (Elijah Wood) obsessively collects items from his family, from toothbrushes to retainers to scraps of paper, which he then seals in ziploc bags and pins to a wall in his house to record his family history. But the space for his grandfather is conspicuously bare. All Jonathan really has of him is a piece of jewelry and an old photo of him with a woman who hid him from the Nazis during the Second World War. Jonathan decides to undertake a quest to Ukraine to find the woman, thank her, and learn more about his grandfather.

His quest is aided there by a couple of characters who run a tourist company for Jewish people, including a young man obsessed with western culture (Eugene Hutz), his grandfather (Boris Leskin), who thinks he is blind and who may have memories and demons of his own from the war, and his grandfather’s temperamental seeing eye dog, Sammy Davis Jr, Jr.

The film effectively combines both humour and drama as these characters (and they are characters!) travel through the countryside looking for Jonathan’s grandfather’s town, driving deeper and deeper into the memories of the past. What starts out as a journey to piece together one family’s story under the most absurd circumstances turns into a surprisingly meaningful journey with a powerful series of revelations –the importance of remembrance, the perilous nature of secrets, the legacy of the Holocaust, the meaning of friendship and, most importantly, love.

Everything is Illuminated is adapted for the screen and directed by Liev Schreiber. Originally published as a novel in 2001, the story first came to Schreiber’s attention as a piece of short fiction sent to him by the New Yorker magazine. At the time Schreiber was acting in a stage play in New York and was doing a reading series for the magazine. He was immediately attracted to the material. Schreiber says, “It’s really about people’s need to be connected. We follow these two people from vastly different cultures who should have absolutely nothing in common, but come to realize that there’s a deep connection between them that is emotionally and spiritually binding.”

Liev Schreiber will attend the screening the Virginia Film Festival screening of Everything is Illuminated and take questions afterwards.