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Most of the new short film “The Ice Cream Man” was made in Amsterdam, where Nazi police officer Klaus Barbie targeted Jewish resistance fighter Ernst Cahn in 1941.
Robert Moniot, the film’s director, shot scenes at a beach along the North Sea and in a prison cell that hasn’t been renovated in 80 years. But Amsterdam lacks an ice cream parlor to match the look of a popular business once owned by Cahn, Moniot said, which is how Indiana became a big part of the Holocaust movie scheduled to premiere July 25 during the Indy Shorts International Film Festival.
Facing a tight deadline to enter a filmmaking contest sponsored by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, Moniot launched an online search for a crucial shooting location.
“I couldn’t find an ice cream parlor anywhere in Amsterdam that looked right,” Moniot said. “I couldn’t find it in New York and I couldn’t find it in L.A. They all looked like a ’50s diner. So I Googled ‘1900 renovated ice cream parlor’ and the top hit was Zaharakos Ice Cream Parlor in Columbus, Indiana.”
Boasting a mechanical pipe organ, 40-foot marble counter and elegant soda fountains, the Zaharakos shop opened in October 1900 and was restored to past glory by Tony Moravec in 2009.
Moniot made a successful pitch to Moravec for shooting part of “The Ice Cream Man” at Zaharakos, but Moravec died of a heart attack at age 72 in 2022.
“[Moravec] had such a passion for the movie and for this story and the message we’re trying to share,” said Moniot.
The 33-minute film includes scenes of lead actor Noah Emmerich portraying Cahn with customers inside his Koco Ice Cream Parlor in Amsterdam (known offscreen as Indiana’s Zaharakos).
Indianapolis filmmaker Greg Malone, one of the producers of “The Ice Cream Man,” said Emmerich—known for playing FBI agent Stan Beeman in TV series “The Americans”—has a personal connection to the film’s setting.
“Noah is Jewish,” Malone said. “His father lived part of his childhood in Amsterdam and knew of the ice cream parlor in the movie. He lived in the neighborhood of Anne Frank’s family.”
Although Cahn became the first executed resistance fighter in the Netherlands, his defiance sparked the first anti-Nazi protest of World War II when more than 300,000 workers in Amsterdam staged a strike on Feb. 25-26, 1941.
Moniot’s screenplay for “The Ice Cream Man” won the filmmaker contest sponsored by the Claims Conference.
When accepting the award and its $50,000 cash prize in February 2023, Moniot said, “Given the significant rise in antisemitism, hate speech and fascism across the globe, these are the kinds of stories that people should hear and talk about. It is such a big responsibility and honor to be able to tell the story of Ernst Cahn.”
Producer Malone is one of many Indiana residents connected to “The Ice Cream Man.” Gretchen Hall, who teaches acting at Indiana University in Bloomington, portrays Cahn’s wife, Ursula. Freddy Arsenault, director of development for IU’s Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture and Design as well as being married to Hall, portrays a leading resistance fighter.
Cinematographer James Timperman is an Indiana State University alum. Also from Indiana: co-producer Amy Pauszek, co-producer Jo Throckmorton and production designer James Beaver.
Two sold-out screenings at Indy Shorts, a festival launched by Heartland Film in 2018, are sponsored by the Candles Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Terre Haute.
Moniot said he initially envisioned “The Ice Cream Man” as a full-length feature. It’s a substantial short with more than 20 speaking roles and hundreds of background actors.
“It’s under $1 million,” Moniot said of the film’s budget. “If this had been a Hollywood production, this thing would have cost about $4 million to $6 million.”
Regarding the running time, Moniot said 33 minutes proved to be the right length.
“Our mission is and has been to give the movie away when we’re done with it,” Moniot said. “Send it to every Holocaust Museum and to every school. Teachers have told us the movie should be half an hour because that’s the perfect bite size for a classroom. I want kids to see this movie and then go talk about it in the parking lot afterward.”
‘The Ice Cream Man’
- In-person screenings: 7 p.m. July 25 at Newfields (sold out); 12:45 p.m. July 27 at Living Room Theaters (sold out).
- Online viewing: Available for $15, beginning at noon July 23.
- Info: Visit watch.eventive.org.
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