98-year-old Jewish World War II vet produces Christian movie on miracles
Summary
The Girl Who Believes in Miracles is a new film based on the true story of a young girl named Sarah Hopkins, who was diagnosed with terminal heart disease and was given three months to live. Her family prayed that God would miraculously save her, and God did. Larry Jaffe, a World War II veteran and 98-year-old producer talks about the making of the film, and why he believes in miracles.
Transcript
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In development of the film, have you shown it to any young people yourself, and what was their reaction?
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We've had very good reactions from young people, and for older mothers with young children.
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Mothers love to bring children to see this movie, and they get a very positive reaction.
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Finding films to watch these days can be extremely difficult, and now with most of us at home,
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that's one of the things we look forward to, finding a good film, especially for the kids as they're wanting to watch something.
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Doing that is extremely difficult, but we have been given a gift.
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There's a gift, in fact you might say a miracle, in a new film that's out by a producer who, believe it or not,
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You're going to want to stay tuned for this one.
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Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross.
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In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
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Let's get this straight. You are 98 years of age.
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That's amazing. Okay, so, what is your film, and what's the inspiration behind the film?
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The original script was written by the grandfather of a young lady who had a terrible heart condition
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that the doctor said was not curable, and she only had her three months to live.
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Family prayed. My partner, who's a script writer, prayed.
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And miracle of all miracles, she recovered without any medical help.
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And my partner promised God that if God saved her life, which he did, that he would write a movie about it.
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And so he did, and we took it, and then we had Rich Corral, who was a marvelous writer, director, and producer,
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actually took a good plot and brought it alive.
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And we ended up with this movie called The Girl Who Believes in Miracles.
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Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So, this is sort of partially based on a true story, is it, then?
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It's all fiction, actually. A fulfillment of a promise. That was a true story.
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Beautiful. We're just going to play a little clip,
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which basically demonstrates the power of this film in inculcating,
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or in terms of inspiring faith in people, young people as well.
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Yeah, and hold on to your hat. There's going to be a lot more of it.
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I'm just a lucky girl who God decided to build.
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The truth is, all you have to do is believe in God and pray to Him.
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Truly beautiful, what you've done with this film, Larry.
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Let me ask you a little bit about your own faith life,
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because obviously this kind of film comes from a place of faith.
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If you would, tell us a little bit about your own journey.
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Surprisingly, I'm Jewish, and I got involved with a Christian-oriented film,
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because there is so much in the Christian religion that comes from the Jewish religion.
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Let me tell you about the various messages that this film delivers and show you how it's Christian and Jewish at the same time.
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Christians, and we Jews believe in the miracle of the creation of this world in six days with a seventh day for rest.
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Christians, you know, Christians, you know, Christians believe in the miracle of Jesus Christ and his restoration.
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Redemption is so critical for many, many religions.
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You know, people do wander from the path, and they're coming back to the path.
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It's so, so critical, and we find that in this film, we set up an individual who we all hate initially.
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His life is saved after bullying the individual who saves him.
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And the person who saves him is Danny, that's Sarah.
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And without hesitation, even after this soccer cheat just bullied him minutes before,
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Danny sees a vehicle heading to kill his bully.
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And without hesitating, he risks his own life, goes in front of the vehicles, and pushes the bully out of the way.
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That's a beautiful presentation of showing the other cheek, which is such a famous Jesus saying.
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And it is so critical, from my point of view, even the fact that little Sarah brings the dog back to life.
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This is a dog who she met when he growled at her and scared her.
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But that didn't stop her from doing something very positive with that dog.
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And it's so very important for all of us to recognize that there's the spark of God in every one of us,
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even people who come to us across as being not so good.
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And it pays for us to recognize that and to help them as well as others.
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A beautiful portrayal of a faithful little girl, which has so often been used.
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In fact, there's some allusion, seems to me anyway, in the film of Fatima and what happened there with Miracles.
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Just beautiful stuff to inspire with a lot of different vignettes, like you said, promoting different virtues,
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which is just really great, especially for young people.
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I found this one particularly good for young people.
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In development of the film, have you shown it to any young people yourself?
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We've had very good reaction from young people.
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And for older mothers with young children, mothers love to bring children to see this movie.
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And this is, it's not only family friendly, but it's friendly for your little ones.
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Anything else, Larry, that you'd like to tell us about the film or about your journey to it?
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I frankly would not be talking to you today for a miracle that occurred in my life.
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And when I was in Olsen's training in Quantico, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington,
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I was in the senior class and they pulled us out and we participated in the ceremony that
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When that was over, our master sergeant said, okay, guys, you're going in this train, we're
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President Roosevelt is going to be buried in his estate.
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We had to try to sleep in a passenger train, sitting up.
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And the following morning, that same sergeant said, okay, we're in this station.
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Now, I hardly slept that night in my sleepy state.
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I got out on the wrong side and I was walking up the track when something came along and
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Seconds later, the express train came zooming through that train track that I was walking
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My father, a very kind, gentle man, died just a few months before.
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And he actually did some very, very interesting things during my career in the Marine Corps that
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Up to the point of that miracle, I believed in God, but it was based on faith.
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It's an incredible thing when you're touched by God.
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And thank you for making something that for many of us is a breath of fresh air.
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We can still go to the theater or at least watch it from home for those of us who can't
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get there and enjoy something for the whole family.
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Larry, thank you for what you've done and for your service to the country.
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You know what Rotten Tomatoes does, you know, it questions people after they see a movie.
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We have a 93% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 4.6 out of 5 score, average score.
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