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Sundial: Filmmaker Nancy Spielberg screening new documentary at Miami Jewish Film Festival

Courtesy of the Miami Jewish Film Festival

Nancy Spielberg has a famous last name.

But as a filmmaker, she’s used it much differently than her older brother — Hollywood director Steven Spielberg.

Nancy has used the Spielberg name mostly behind the scenes. She produces movies that highlight stories of Israel and the Jewish diaspora.

Nancy’s interest has been in producing documentaries, while her brother has focused on narrative, feature films. But now, she’s helping advance a new movie she helped produce.

The film, Closed Circuit, debuts this month at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, which runs January 12 through the 26.

The film, by director Tal Inbar, tells the story of a terrorist attack in 2016 at a mall in Tel Aviv. And it does it in a gripping way — by relying on security camera footage throughout the mall, narrated through interviews with survivors. The effect is haunting.

Closed Circuit debuts just as the 2023 Oscar nominations are set to be announced later this month — and Nancy has an interest in that, too.

She consulted on her brother’s most recent film, The Fabelmans, a fictionalized version of their life growing up in Arizona. It’s an early front runner for an Oscar nomination. The movie explores a devastating rift in the family, and shows how movies can reveal truths hiding in plain sight.

On Sundial's previous episode, on Jan. 4,WLRN’s environment editor Jenny Staletovich shared some of her most memorable stories from last year, from fleeing baby alligators in Big Cypress to going bird watching at the dump.

Listen to Sundial Monday through Thursday on WLRN, 91.3 FM, live at 1 p.m., rebroadcast at 8 p.m. Missed a show? Find every episode of Sundial on your favorite podcast app, such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify.

Carlos Frías is a bilingual writer, a journalist of more than 25 years and the author of an award-winning memoir published by Simon & Schuster.
Leslie Ovalle Atkinson is the former lead producer behind Sundial. As a multimedia producer, she also worked on visual and digital storytelling.
Elisa Baena is a former associate producer for Sundial.