The Lonely Child
Director and Producer Marc Smolowitz, Producer Alix Wall
The Lonely Child is a haunting Yiddish lullaby written during the Holocaust, capturing the heartbreak of a mother and daughter torn apart by war. Eighty years later, the daughter of the child in the song embarks on a powerful journey to trace the song’s footprint, uncovering its unexpected impact across generations.
Marc Smolowitz
Director, Producer
Marc Smolowitz is a multi-award-winning director, producer, executive producer, and consulting producer who has been significantly involved in over 60 successful independent films. The combined footprint of his works has touched 250+ film festivals & markets on 5 continents, yielding substantial worldwide sales to theatrical, television, and VOD outlets, notable box office receipts, and numerous awards and nominations. His credits include films that have screened at top-tier festivals such as Sundance, Berlin, Venice, Tribeca, Locarno, SXSW, Chicago, Palm Springs, SFFILM, AFI DOCS, IDFA, DOC NYC, CPH: DOX, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne, Viennale, Jerusalem, among others. In 2009, Marc founded 13th Gen, a San Francisco-based boutique entertainment company that works with a dynamic range of independent film partners globally to oversee the financing, production, post-production, marketing, sales, and distribution efforts of a vibrant portfolio of films and filmmakers. With talent development as its focus, the company is typically involved in some 10-15 projects concurrently and has successfully advanced Marc’s career-long commitment to powerful social issue filmmaking across all genres. In 2016, Marc received one of the prestigious Gotham Fellowships to attend the Cannes Film Festival’s Producers Network, marking him as one of the USA’s most influential independent film producers.
Alix Wall
Producer
Alix Wall is the writer/producer of The Lonely Child, currently in post-production, about a song written during the Holocaust about her mother and grandmother. She is an award-winning journalist who lives in Oakland, California. A contributing editor of J., the Jewish News of Northern California, she regularly writes about food and other features, and has written extensively for the Jewish media throughout her career. For the past five years, she has been a regular contributor to the popular “Vows” column in The New York Times. She also regularly writes for Berkeleyside and the Oaklandside, news sites covering the East Bay. In 2018, she wrote about a Jewish lifer who started a college program in prison; in 2020, she was among those at the gate when he was released, a career highlight. She has also worked as a personal chef and founded a group for Bay Area Jewish food professionals.