PierrePierre, a young Jewish man, struggles to survive in the midst of the Holocaust. From

fear to the face of destruction, he finds refuge in the Hirsch’s.

Screenplay by Patricia Jover

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. © 2014 FOCUS FILMS INC. NO PORTION OF THIS SCRIPT MAY BE PERFORMED, PUBLISHED, REPRODUCED, SOLD OR

DISTRIBUTED BY ANY MEANS, OR QUOTED OR PUBLISHED IN ANY MEDIUM, INCLUDING ANY WEB SITE, WITHOUT THE PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT OF 2014 FOCUS FILMS INC. DISPOSAL OF THIS SCRIPT COPY DOES NOT ALTER ANY OF

THE RESTRICTIONS SET FORTH ABOVE.

SCENE 3: THURSDAY EVENING

FADE IN:

EXT. STUTTGART, GERMANY – EVENING

-LATE SEPTEMBER, 1939-

We see a young man in his early twenties, Pierre, walking quickly through the DARK ALLEYS of Stuttgart, Germany with an older man in his late forties. Pierre is dressed in RIPPED CLOTHES while Franz is in a LOOSELY FITTED SHIRT WITH TROUSERS. WWII. 1939. Pierre’s face is NOT revealed visibly.

SOUNDTRACK: ONE SMALL FACT – JOHN WILLIAMS

FRANZCome on boy. Quick!

CUT TO:

INT. the Hirsch’s house - EVENING

We see Franz and Pierre, scurrying into a ONE-STORY BRICK HOUSE in Lengefeldweg – both out of breath. Pierre’s face is finally revealed and is covered in SOOT and DIRT.

KAROLINOh just in time! Supper’s just about rea –

FRANZ(Overlapping)

Karolin, (Pause) this is Pierre.

Karolin raises her head from the TABLE she is preparing and looks to the men in surprise.

KAROLINWhat?

Pierre falls to the floor. Franz and Karolin immediately move toward him and HELP him up. They lead him to a RUN-DOWN, BROWN,LEATHER SOFA in the SITTING ROOM. Once settled, Karolin looks to Franz in uncertainty and fear.

(CONTINUED)

PIERRE(Softly and weakly) Do you..do you have any food?

Karolin continuously looks in uncertainty. Franz signals Karolin with a slight nudge. Karolin does not respond and backs away from the men and slowly exits the scene. Instead, Franz brings some BREAD to Pierre. Franz looks to Pierre.

PIERREI’m sorry...I...I didn’t know where else to go.

Franz nods.

FRANZWhere’s your mother? Did they take her?

Pierre looks at Franz with a look of desolation and does not reply. Franz nods in regret.

FRANZOkay, get some rest. I will arrange a more (pause) permanent

place for you in the morning.

Franz gets up to leave. But before he exits the scene, he looks to Pierre once more.

FRANZ Don’t worry, (Pause) you’ll be safe here.

CUT TO:INT. the Hirsch’s bedroom - EVENING

Karolin is pacing back and forth in the bedroom. Franz enters the scene.

KAROLINFor goodness sake Franz! You can’t just bring a stranger...a Jew!

into our home!

Franz does not say anything.

KAROLIN (Threateningly) Where did you pick him up? The streets?

(CONTINUED)FRANZ

(Overlapping and with a raised voice) Karolin, don’t say that. You don’t understand.

Karolin chuckles mockingly.

KAROLINI don’t understand? I don’t understand!? I know damn well that by

bringing him in you are putting yourself in danger. (With a raised voice) No! You are putting this entire family in danger.

Franz stays quiet and lowers his head.

KAROLINFor goodness sake Franz...Where do you plan on letting him sleep?

How do you plan on feeding him? You can’t just—

Franz stands up with immediacy.

FRANZKarolin! That’s enough! (Long pause) Pierre...Pierre is my...

Franz hesitates.

FRANZPierre is my nephew.

Karolin looks to Franz in shock. Karolin is speechless.

KAROLINBut...but...

Franz sighs.

FRANZA while before Josef was posted with the Sturmabteilung, he met a woman. I...I don’t know much about her and how they met but they

had a child...Pierre.

Franz moves to the SIDE TABLE and reveals a CAREFULLY FOLDED LETTER.

FRANZJosef wrote to me just before his passing.

(CONTINUED)Franz looks to the LETTER. Karolin moves closer to him. Josef reads part of the LETTER through voiceover.

JOSEF V.O.I know I deserve nothing from you Franz, but please, take care of Pierre. He is a brave and tough young man with a whole life ahead of him. And I don’t want that life to be taken away because of my

failures.

FRANZI cursed him for being with a Jew. For betraying our family, for

betraying this country. (Pause)

Franz looks down and covers his eyes. Karolin moves towards Franz to comfort him.

FRANZAnd now he’s gone. I didn’t get to say goodbye. (Pause) I owe it

to him Karolin. I owe it to my brother.

- END OF SCENE 3 -

CREDIT PAGE

Beer, E. (2000). The Nazi’s Officer Wife: How one Jewish woman survived the Holocaust. United States: William Morrow and Company.

Benmussa, R., & Polanski, R., & Sarde, A. (Producer), & Polanski, R. (Director). (2002). The Pianist [Motion picture]. United States: Universal Studios.

Blancato, K., & Rosenfelt, K. (Producer), & Percival, B. (Director). (2013). The Book Thief [Motion picture]. United States: 20th Century Fox.

Frank, A. (1952). The Diary of a Young Girl. United States: Doubleday Publishing.

Heyman, D. (Producer), & Herman, M. (Director). (2008). The Boy in the Striped Pajamas [Motion picture]. United States: Walt Disney Studios.

Zusak, M. (2006). The Book Thief. United States: Knopf.

PEER REVIEWS

1. Your screenplay has very detail description on the setting and the action they did, and as I could only see a scene, I could not understand the whole story, I would suggest that to write more scenes or to provide more background information of the story to make the reader easier to follow. On the other hand,, it may possible to add the time that the speech start and how long would it last for to let the actors to have a better time management.

I think the typesetting of the screenplay have to be modified for increasing the readability.

From:

KAROLINOh just in time! Supper’s just about rea –

FRANZ(Overlapping)

Karolin, (Pause) this is Pierre.

Karolin raises her head from the table she is preparing and looks to the men in surprise.

KAROLINWhat?

To:

KAROLIN: Oh just in time! Supper’s just about rea –

FRANZ:(overlapping) Karolin, (Pause) This is Pierre.

Karolin raises her head from the table she is preparing and looks to the men in surprise.

KAROLIN: What?

(Peer review by LAU Kirstie)

2. I liked the screenplay and think the storyboard goes together with the story – good choice of film shooting shots. The soundtrack of John Williams is good for that scene but maybe you can tell us which part of the song you’ll include or will you include the whole song? Also maybe at the end, some music can be added to show the end of the scene.

You said you were worried about the accuracy of the events – I think it is realistic based on the context and based on what I have read from other books. Based on the scene it lets me wonder how come Karolin did not know about Franz’s brother? Is Karolin and Franz’s marriage not doing good?

(Peer review by WU Jessica)

SELF-REFLECTION

With the themes of family, survival and the Holocaust, I created the plot of “Pierre” with influences from The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. I then recreated the plot into a screenplay through influences from The Pianist, a film directed by Roman Polanski.

As a screenplay, one of my primary audiences includes the film production team including actors, actresses, audio and lighting crew etc. and to appeal to this audience, it was important that I retained proper screenwriting format through the use of scene headings, action and other elements of a script.

My interest in the Holocaust was reflected through the writing of this screenplay as factual instances such as the hiding of Jews took place and caused for mixed views among the Germans. My plot also reflected the relationships between Jews and non-Jews at the time which I had doubts about factuality in the process of the script but took influence from the book, The Nazi Officer’s Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust by Edith Hahn-Beer. Research into the accuracy of events was the toughest part about writing this plot as another audience to my film would be the general public in which academia studying the Holocaust, Holocaust Research Centers and other individuals specializing on the topic could retain an awareness to the events – therefore, accuracy is of great importance. It is also important to suit the needs of general film viewers so elements of audio is crucial to be included – however, only one soundtrack is used in the above scene as I chose to focus on the dialogue of the characters instead.

To further work on this script, it would’ve been nice to have a test shoot to see whether specific dialogue or actions could be further improved to create the emotion of desperateness from Pierre and hesitancy from Karolin.