25 years ago we made a film that almost no one has seen. The time is right to change that.

Fighter was our first documentary, and we had every reason to believe that the road trip we’d captured – undertaken by two irascible, inspiring, and hilarious holocaust survivors – was on its way to reaching a large audience. In the run-up to its 2001 theatrical release, Rolling Stone called it "one of the great documentaries of this year, or any other." The New Yorker called it "Brilliant.” It took home the top documentary prize at half a dozen international film festivals, and the AARP named it “Best Film of the Year” — which, to be honest, means a lot more to us now than it did then.

Three weeks after its opening in New York City, the twin towers fell. The city shut down. The country's attention was, rightly, somewhere else. The film’s theatrical window closed before it ever really opened. Eventually, the license expired, and the DVDs went out of print. For years, the only way to watch Fighter was a fan upload on YouTube.

Now, on the film’s 25th anniversary, we believe Fighter not only deserves a second chance - we feel that this moment demands it.

When we shot the film in 1998, antisemitism seemed to be largely what our grandparents had survived. Fascism was a unit in history class. We were closing out a century in which the march of democracy looked inevitable, and autocracy was on the run.

But Fighter, unfortunately, isn't a period piece anymore — it is a dispatch from a world that looks increasingly like our own. Two years ago, the ADL recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents — the highest number in the 46-year history of its annual audit. Freedom House has documented twenty consecutive years of global democratic decline.

Fighter still

For Fighter, circumstances have also changed:

The film is ours again. After years of ping-ponging between distributors, the rights to Fighter have reverted to us.
We have the technology. The standard-definition video we shot in the 90’s — state of the art at the time — can finally be restored and upresed to a quality the film has never been seen before.
The world needs it now. The central question the film addresses - what does it mean to be a fighter when it counts – is one people, young and old, need to hear.

Where we are and what is needed:

The technical restoration team - led by Fighter's original filmmakers - is ready to begin. A distribution and rollout strategy is in development, with plans to bring the film to schools, synagogues, JCCs, and theatrical venues, alongside a newly developed discussion guide designed to extend the film's impact beyond the screen. Fiscal sponsorship through BAVC (Bay Area Video Coalition), a 501(c)(3), means all contributions are fully tax-deductible.

What's missing is modest: $45,000 to finish what we started twenty-five years ago.

Film restoration & technical upgrade	$ 20K
Distribution, outreach & travel	$ 20K
Conversation guide development	$ 5K
Total	$ 45K

Help us to revive this story and, in doing so, inspire the next generation of Fighters.

– Amir Bar-Lev, Jonathan Crosby, Alex Mamlet

Fighter - Restoration Fundraiser!