Columbia Jewish Film Festival | Once in a Lifetime

The Columbia Jewish Heritage Initiative is proud to support the Columbia Jewish Film Festival and sponsor Once in a Lifetime, an important film about Holocaust education. The film will be screened at 5 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 6. at the Nickelodeon Theater. After the film, there will be talk-back panel of local educators to discuss the impact Holocaust education has on South Carolina students.

Once in a Lifetime takes place in an inner-city high school in a rough Parisian suburb, and history teacher Anne Gueguen is determined to engage her multicultural classroom of mostly African immigrants and Muslim students. Nothing captures her students’ interest until she challenges them to come face-to-face with the atrocities of the Holocaust. The students initially resist their teacher’s lessons until they meet a French survivor of Auschwitz. Their attitudes quickly change, and a visit to a Holocaust memorial transforms their lives. Gueguen also encourages her students to enter the National Contest of Resistance and Deportation—a contest that requires them to create a project based on the theme of “Children and Teenagers under the Nazi Regime.” Despite their long-shot odds of winning, the students persevere, and the results are both delightful and surprising. 

This film is an example of how the Holocaust can be effectively taught and change students’ lives forever. One of the kids in the original class became one of the screenwriters and acted in the film. And the film is mandated to be shown in all middle and high schools across France. For people who question what is going to happen to the history of the Holocaust when survivors fade away, this film is the answer to that. (description from the Boston Jewish Film Festival website)

As a result of some strong language, this film is recommended for teenagers and older.