Producing a feature length documentary can be costly, and additional funds were raised as work progressed. I teamed up with Terence Taylor, a colleague at Thirteen, and in late 2011 we cut a trailer for a fund raising campaign on Kickstarter, the crowd funding website, that exceeded our goal. It was there I discovered that Ecuador's consuls in Europe had the power of life and death and that some had risked their positions to save lives. I also learned that the refugee community made important contributions to the economic, scientific, artistic, and cultural life of their host country.Īnother surprising discovery was that the archives of Ecuador's Ministry of Foreign Affairs preserve many records of Jewish exile to Ecuador. I was surprised as well to learn that some exiles became peddlers, selling merchandise door to door. Until 1944, when the law was repealed, they still had to get official approval to work in fields other than industry or farming. Even making a fresh start in the cities was not so simple. Many who tried farming failed, either from inexperience, severe hardships, or poor yields. Some even farmed in the Amazonian jungle. Therefore, these exiles who came mostly from urban settings, had to work in farming, which for most was very difficult. One surprising element is that the refugees could get visas to Ecuador only if they worked in industry or agriculture.
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