I continued to feel dirty, unlovable and responsible for what happened to me. Sasha Joseph Neulinger is a husband, hockey player, backcountry adventurer, motivational speaker, and an Emmy Nominated filmmaker - he also happens to be a survivor of multi-generational child sexual abuse: Old home movies, recording happy times, serve as the storys backdrop, presenting a stark contrast to the darker truths that existed behind the scenes and cast a long shadow. Executive producers: Cindy Meehl, Thomas Winston This is incredibly powerful! A very candid. And in rewatching my childhood memories and moments, I got to realize something I couldnt possibly understand as a child who felt dirty, disgusting, unlovable, and that is that I never lost what made me beautiful. If my religious leaders, those who connect me to God, are sinister or even evil, what does that say about my faith? One day, while being bathed, he screamed in pain. He knew that in order to truly move forward with his life, hed have to revisit his past, search for the source of his cognitive disconnect, and confront his demons head on. Rewind dependently relies on title cards, to give the viewer important wrap-up information. Its not that I didnt get love, its that I didnt feel lovable, Sasha concedes. Neulingers father is one of the more remarkable figures in this film. One day, Sasha began grabbing at Bekah, his little sisters chest in the back of the car, something he saw as nothing more than a harmless titty twister. His mother, Jacqui asked why he was acting so aggressively. Twice exceptional (2e) stands for gifted with disabilities or learning differences. Henry isnt hiding behind his lenses, not anymore, he can finally express affection for his son from the other side of the camera. In a home video provided by his father, a brief moment from hours of taped memories, Sasha says he remembers feeling trapped. My kids that we plan to have one day are going to be die-hard Flyers fans. Sifting through 700 hours of film footage, including 200 hours of home video, Sasha Neulinger has been rewatching his childhood for the last four years to create a documentary, Rewind to Fast-Forward. With Sasha Joseph Neulinger, Howard Nevison. But I did choose how I responded to it: how it would contribute to the shaping of who I am today. New Book Explores Current Trends, OKelley Legends: 2e Behind the Scenes Is a Gift, Israeli Whisky Is Now the Best Single Malt Whisky in the World, SWU Marks Yom Hashoah, OU Announces New Board, Greenblatt Joins JCPA, A Bisl Torah The Power of Being Yourself, Your Beard. She recalled watching Neulingers case unfold on the news, not being able to believe it. Theres no running from place to place, retelling the story dozens of times, like Neulinger had to do. Get Jewish Exponent's Newsletter by email and never miss our top stories, Yemin Orde Alumna Talks Programs Success, ADLs Greenblatt Embraces Controversy, Bemoans Rancor in Community, Documentarian Reunited Holocaust Survivors after 80 Years, Ken Burns Next Documentary About US Response to the Holocaust, Diplomat Who Saved Jews During WWII Honored. It was at that moment that I finally realized what my abusers were doing was wrong, he said. His case spurred a larger movement in child advocacy, including the creation of Mission Kids Child Advocacy Center in East Norriton with the help of then-district attorney Risa Ferman and Abbie Newman. Uncle Howard said to me, If you tell anyone, Ill kill you. And I believed it, he said. Rewind, is simply an astounding movie and a milestone in psychiatrically minded filmmaking. The film premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, where it received the Special Jury Mention Award, and it won Best Documentary earlier this year at the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival. But like most young victims, he told no one. Sasha speaks about his trauma as a child and how he learned to love himself again by transforming his pain into good. There is inspiration, there is hope and the message is that if we are able to look at our wounds and embrace your fears, to accept and examine our traumatic experiences, then we can truly heal them and move forward in life, he said, and this idea that its never too late to start the journey of healing. See An INCREDIBLE Snippet HERE! This isnt a film worried about manipulating feeling in a specific manner, its concern is bringing that sensation back to those who have forgotten how to feel it. I built a loving and respectful relationship with myself and reclaimed ownership of my life and it feels absolutely amazing!. ROSEMONT, Pa. (WPVI) -- A young man is now talking about being sexually abused by those he trusted. Link to Sasha's video documentary "Rewind to Fast Forward": https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sashaneulinger/rewind-to-fast-forward, 76ers' Joel Embiid ruled out for Game 1 vs. Celtics, Drivers ticketed for leaving cars in path of street sweepers, ESPN: Harper to return to lineup 159 days after Tommy John surgery. And as the film progresses, the more we similarly notice the carefully concealed agony being endured, and villainy being perpetrated, off-screenspied in a childs sorrowful eyes, inappropriately sexualized dance, and frantic outburst, or in a grown mans hair-ruffling gesture or toothy grin. YOUR RATING. On May 11, 2020, REWIND had its U.S Television Premiere on PBSs Independent Lens, bringing the film into 280 million households nationwide. Sasha Joseph Neulinger is a husband, hockey player, backcountry adventurer, motivational speaker, and an Emmy Nominated filmmaker - he also happens to be a survivor of multi-generational child sexual abuse: I believe that a person doesnt have to know how they are going to climb their mountain, they just need to know that they are committed to climbing it. Larry, on the other hand, comes across in old clips as a performance-happy clown, affecting funny accents and playing to the camera. At that moment, the world became a dark place and I felt dirty.. In fact, a Reform rabbi spelled it out to Neulinger, asserting the movie would only succeed in hurting Jews. By what name was Rewind (2019) officially released in India in English? All Rights Reserved. As a filmmaker, Neulinger owes much here to his father Henry who was late to his own sons birth because he was buying the video camera hed use to shoot so much of this footage. Sasha Joseph Neulinger is the co-founder and head of production at Step 1 Films where he produces content for commercial clients nationally. He was a straight-A student, physically fit, and enjoying his social life. Henry grew up with a mother who was gregarious in public and emotionally cold and remote in private, a father who accepted his wifes vitriol on a daily basis, and two older brothers. But, like so much else in life, it came about organically as he began sorting through his fathers old videos in an effort to cobble together a cohesive whole from the chaotic threads of his childhood. As each frame of footage unfolds, so, too, do the layers of this complex and affecting survivor story, the heartbeat of which is Neulingers vulnerability, bravery, and enduring positivity, against all odds. It was traumatizing, and tiring, he said. (Though Neulinger works hard to be even-handed here, including footage that shows Uncle Howies loving side, he doesnt invite anyone from Emanu-El to share their side of the story.). To his surprise, his father had three huge boxes and over 200 hours of home video, said Neulinger, whose name change is dealt with in Rewind. All Rights Reserved. But the most tragic thing is that all this sexual trauma goes much deeper than what happened to Sasha. His father, a filmmaker, often brought his production . But there was something else going on below the surface beneath the frames a terrible secret Henry never told his family about. When a child is experiencing that level of trauma, its hard to retain beautiful moments. I was you know, hiking, fishing, and doing all the things that I loved. I got to watch the four years of my life from 4 to 8 where I was holding this painful secret and I got to watch myself grow up. Simi Horwitz is a New York-based award-winning feature writer/film reviewer. Neulinger has become an inspirational motivator who inspired the creation of a child advocacy center, Mission Kids. Through Kickstarter, Neulinger started raising funds to create the project that became the sixth most-backed documentary in Kickstarter history, he added, and began working with Skywalker Sound and editor Ken Schretzmann from Pixar. Whats more difficult is following exactly how things played out in the legal system. After a decade of battling to reclaim his voice in court as a child in Pennsylvania, Sasha moved to Montana in 2008 to study film production at Montana State University. Ex: myspace.com/. God on Psychedelics? Hes a genuine profile in courage, finding the strength to do whats right for himself, and his beloved sibling, not only from within, but from those family members who truly cared about himnone greater than his maternal great-grandfather Joseph, who learns, in the films tear-inducing centerpiece, that young Sasha is casting aside his painful past by taking Josephs surname as his own. His nephew testified that he did not report the abuse for years because Nevison threatened to kill him. An intensely personal project six years in the making, featuring first-hand interviews with Neulingers family, and the law enforcement and mental health professionals on the front lines of subsequent legal battles, Rewind reframes the perspective on traumatic events from Sashas childhood, this time placing him in control of the camera, firmly at the helm of his own narrative. Sasha Joseph Neulinger - Filmmaker Each one of us was born into this world with a clean slate. A memoir of molestation whose convoluted structure mirrors the shocking web of abuse its protagonists suffered, Sasha Joseph Neulinger's Rewind allows viewers to watch as . You have entered an incorrect email address! My husband disappeared into this lens.. At a fundraiser called Montana Meets Pennsylvania at International House Philadelphia on Sept. 24, Neulinger who grew up in Lower Merion and now lives in Bozeman, Montana showed a gathering of people who were participating in a silent auction as well as munching on hors doeuvres clips from the assembly edits of the film. In a case that made headlines, another uncle, Howard Nevison, then the cantor at a prominent New York synagogue, denied the charges that hed abused the boy from the ages of 4 to 7, but in a 2006 deal, agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanors and was spared a prison term. READ MORE: In HBO's "The Tale," Narberth's Jennifer Fox turns to fiction to tell her own true, tough story. The use of old home movies to show how Neulingers life was transformed, however dramatic, is just the start here, as this was a family with plenty of pain to uncover and one whose suffering would be exacerbated by a powerful religious community that, for once in stories like this, isnt the Catholic Church. Amazon.com: Rewind : Sasha Joseph Neulinger, Avela Grenier, Shasta Grenier, Robert Schneeweis, Thomas Winston: Prime Video Home Free with ads Rewind Digging through the vast collection of his father's home videos, a young man reconstructs the unthinkable story of his boyhood and exposes vile abuse passed through generations. He allowed me to take ownership of the story. The first, Howard, was the famed cantor of New York Citys Temple Emanu-El, and the favored son in their mothers eyes. But there has to be some separation, right? The remarkable composure and empathy that Neulinger can be seen showing from his earliest years extend into his filmmaking, offering his immediate family the chance to share their experiences and reconcile how they handled things based on what they knew and, in some cases, felt they could not share with one another at the time. Neulinger, in "Rewind," is the detective-interviewer excavating his own past, and with his shaved head, shadow of a beard, and polite becalmed millennial manner, he's an earnest and at times. For as long as Neulinger can remember, a video camera was ever-present, with his father constantly filmingfrom birthday parties and hockey games to holidays. The story, as Neulinger's mom Jacqui remembers it, is that her husband Henry Nevison was several hours late to Sasha's birth because he was out buying a video camera, and that beginning . The film was Sashas feature-length directorial debut. When, at the age of 10, Neulinger told his father he wanted to drop the family name (Nevison), his father accepted and supported his sons decision. When Im practicing and I dont have to wear my teams jersey, Im wearing a Flyers jersey. Interviews with his mother, as the audience saw, included recalling a time where Neulinger tried to jump out of a moving car and dark drawings he had made. Sasha doesnt blame his father; there is no disdain remaining, only raw empathy. Watching the footage answered many of his questions while sparking a whole list of new ones. Actor: Shallow Hal. So theres like one grocery store and not a lot of people.. I read every article, I watch every game. We learn Henrys mother ridiculed and emasculated her husband and children, having zero patience emotionally. You know, it was incredibly emotional to watch that footage, to see an innocent child who has a zest for life and to watch that child to watch myself lose that light. By probing the gap between image and reality, the film depicts both how little and how much a camera can capture. Neulinger, now 27, was abused for years as a young boy by three members of his family. Its been a real journey for me as a survivor, but also as a human being, Neulinger told a packed ballroom at the Spring Lake Country Club on Friday afternoon during a fundraiser for Hollands Ed and Nancy Hanenburg Childrens Advocacy Center. I figured that maybe thered be some answers in some of my old childhood home video, Neulinger said Wednesday. He realized that this tug-of-war that was happening inside of him was an indication of lingering, unhealed wounds and unanswered questions from his childhood. However, the 30-year-old also knew confronting his demons was a necessary step. The comedy was a coping mechanism, as Henry now explains: His own childhood was an emotional minefield that can barely be sketched out here. This TEDx Talk features Sasha Joseph Neulinger. After all, a celebration was the perfect time to pull out his video camera. Family members, people he trusted, betrayed and violated him. When I was a kid going through all this, a lot of my time was spent just trying to survive to the next day. It is a human issue. His mom asked his sister to draw pictures. 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The film plays like a memoir of sorts, intercutting family footage with modern-day interviews the director conducts, twenty years after his assault. Seeking justice in the courts required an endless series of painful interviews and years of legal procedure. What I am hoping to do is really talk about how we can help children so they don't grow up angry and disconnected, and subconsciously willing to repeat the cycle," said Sasha. 10 p.m. Monday, WHYY12. For the next nine years of my life, I was in and out of courtrooms testifying against all three of my abusers.. Neulinger still struggles with how the venerated synagogue unquestioningly rallied to Nevisons defense and literally paid for much of it. Contact: mstern@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0740. This was not a civil case. Now, as executive director of Mission Kids, she works to make sure that isnt peoples first reactions. Not everyone responds to trauma in the same way. A Philadelphia-area transplant from New York, Newman began her career as a pediatric registered nurse before becoming an attorney for 20 years and then moving into nonprofit work. 2017 Children's Advocacy Center. Dr. Herbert Lustig, the psychiatrist who worked with Sasha as he was revealing what happened to him, explains that the boy was victorious no matter what courts decided should happen to Nevison: Having told the truth in public, in the face of his abuser, Lustig believes he won in terms of his own emotional health. ), A former child actor whose credits included Shallow Hal and Unbreakable, Neulinger lived in Rosemont and attended Gladwyne Elementary School until moving to Allentown at the age of 10. Unflinching and uncompromising, Rewind is a documentary that isn't afraid to dive deep into the issues of abuse and trauma that it explores across its relatively brief 80 minute runtime as documentarian and main subject Sasha Neulinger delves into his own childhood and his families horrific experiences that spanned generations. Neulinger, now 29, said he was sexually abused by two uncles and a cousin as a child growing up in Pennsylvania. And Temple Emanuels position was not peculiar to Temple Emanuel. One day, when his cousin Stewart summoned him to a room in the attic, Neulinger saw his little sister exiting the room, tears rolling down her face. With one foot in front of the other, and with each step taken, more of the path is revealed.