Ahead Of Time (2010)

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• Project Phase: Completed
• Release Date: 2010-09-10 - NY and/or LA
• Distributor(s): 
• Film Genre(s): Documentary
• Country: United States
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SYNOPSIS

This tells the remarkable journey of American writer and journalist Ruth Gruber, who will turn 99 years old on September 30th. Gruber, a youthful Jewish woman in the late 1920s, was the youngest person to receive a PhD at the age of 20, a feminist before feminism. While at school in Berlin she witnessed the rise of Nazism and began documenting her observations. Eschewing tradition and rejecting the gender standards of her generation, she became a full-time journalist at the age of 24, traveling to the Soviet Arctic in 1935 as the first reporter in the region and beginning an illustrious career with the New York Herald Tribune. Gruber's involvement in the events surrounding WWII contributed to her unique perspective of the history of the last century. But in 1944, she became more then a witness; enlisted by the Roosevelt administration to secretly escort one thousand refugees from Naples to New York on the ship Henry Gibbins, Gruber significantly altered the future of many young children including AHEAD OF TIME executive producer Doris Schechter. She covered the Nuremberg trials in 1946 and 1947, she reported on the infamous Exodus ship's arrival with many Jewish refugees in Palestine and took the photos that were published around the world. Never loosing her tenacity and verve Gruber went on to publish 19 books and receive Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Overseas Press Club, National Jewish Book Awards and the National Coalition Against Censorship among many others. AHEAD OF TIME weaves vérité footage with interviews and archival material. The film premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival before embarking on a successful festival run including Sarasota Film Festival, Full Frame Documentary Festival and the Haifa Film Festival among others, including many Jewish film festivals around the world.

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