Paula Fouce has transformed her interest in distinct and remote Eastern cultures and religions into cinematic expeditions aimed at promoting truth, spirituality and understanding.

�e well-traveled documentarian represents the third generation of a family with pioneering ties to Spanish entertainment in downtown Los Angeles and America’s �rst Spanish-language TV network.

Descended from Spanish im-migrants who landed in Hawaii in the late 1800s, Fouce’s grandfa-ther Frank Louis Fouce Sr. owned what are now historical movie and live theaters in downtown Los Angeles, including the Million Dollar, the Roosevelt and the Ma-yan. �e venues featured Mexican vaudeville acts and Spanish-language �lms. �ey drew huge Spanish-speaking audiences at a time when mainstream media largely ignored them.

Father and son soon recog-nized the potential for Spanish-language television. And in 1961 Frank Jr. co-founded the Spanish International Commu-nication Corp., the forerunner of Univision, the �rst Spanish-language network of television stations in major U.S. cities with large Latino concentrations.

“I grew up backstage at those vaudeville shows, which were all in Spanish. It was truly the greatest entertainment of all time,” Paula Fouce says. “My father and grandfather were Spanish-language entertainment in Los Angeles. �ey brought every major motion picture star from Mexico to the Million Dollar the-ater, and �nally to television.”

As a �ne arts student at Pitzer,Claremont College, Fouce pursued an opportunity to study abroad for a year in Katmandu in the Hima-layas of Nepal. Enamored by the cultures and traditions of the region, Fouce stayed 13 years. She exported jewelry and artifacts from Af-ghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. And she worked as a spiritual tour

guide in India, Tibet, Nepal and China, garnering an even deeper ap-preciation for those countries, their people and their faiths.

“I was fascinated and mesmerized,” Fouce said. “I got to meet the Dalai Lama and Mother Teresa. �ey had so much in common — and they both embodied total humility.”

Fouce learned from yogis (those who practice the philo-sophical, physical and meditative disciplines of yoga that origi-nated in India), and studied Hin-duism, Islam, Sikhism, Jainism and Buddhism. Her initiation in 1976 into a sect of Tibetan Bud-dhism laid the foundation for the subjects of her �lms Origins of Yoga and Naked in Ashes, both of which she directed through her production company Para-dise Filmworks.

“Yoga in Western culture rep-resents barely a sliver of the an-cient traditions. Origins of Yoga takes you through the sacred rituals of the kumbha mela (a massive spiritual pilgrimage of Hindu yogis) that depict the wis-dom and re�ection of the yogic path of freedom.

“Naked in Ashes explores the ascetic life of 13 million yogis, who live virtually naked and pen-niless, ritually cleansing and cov-ering themselves in ash, believing that by taking on the sins of hu-manity, they promote the healing

and redemption of others.” Her next �lm, Not in God’s

Name, garnered acclaim for its rich illustrations of, and often perilous routes into, the world of religious intolerance. �e �lm’s inspiration was the violence that erupted in early November 1984 following Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination by Sikhs. Gandhi, a Hindu, had ordered an attack on the Sikhs’ holiest place of worship. Retribution followed in the region from both sides, with thousands killed.

“I found myself trapped in a religious riot,” Fouce says. “I was

Documentary Filmmaker Chronicles Our Human Story

Paula FouceBy Lynn Wexler

Paula Fouce

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traveling on a bus when it was stormed by Hindus searching for Sikhs to drag o� and kill. I was wearing a Sikh symbol around my neck, which was thankfully hidden by my shirt and went unnoticed. I had previously experienced so much openness and love from the Hindus, and here I was witness to extremes of violence from those very same people. I was reminded that these extremes exist among other faiths as well.”

In her � lm, Fouce documents instances of intolerance and prejudice under the banner of religion — how individuals of faith-based creeds that espouse peace and tolerance could resort to such brutality.

Using India’s own bloody history of religious prejudice and the murders of more than 2 million people as a microcosm, Fouce chronicled Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Zoroastrian, Chris-tian and Jewish responses to the existential question “Why do people kill in the name of God?”

� e results of her inquiries, Fouce said, illustrated a gross “misuse of religion as a manipulative means to an end, in one form or anoth-er: political leaders manipulating the masses to maintain power and control; territorial disputes; and exclusive claims on truth.”

Fouce found herself revisiting the theme of faith and injustice in her next � lm, Song of the Dunes. � e documentary was intended to search the roots of the original Gypsies in the vast Indian state

Anne Frank’s cousin, Buddy Elias at her grave, Bergen Belsen.

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of Rajasthan, with its dramatic monochromatic sand dunes, that shares its western border with Pakistan. � ese nomads, also known as Roma, mysteriously left India more than 1,000 years ago and crossed the Silk Road into Europe.

“Our mission, a crew of filmmakers and myself, was to find the descendants of these original Gypsies,” Fouce states. “Instead, we found that these tribes knew little about the ancient history of their people due to a lack of education, and themselves were the victims of crime and discrimination as the lowest ranking on the still-existent Indian caste system. Our film quickly became about pulling back the curtain and exposing the prejudice towards these people.”

“Hundreds of thousands of Romas died in the Nazi concentra-tion camps and mobile killing squads of the Holocaust. I met a cousin of Anne Frank, Buddy Elias, whom she played with fre-quently as a child. Together, we visited the German concentration camp, Bergen-Belsen, where Anne Frank died, along with thou-sands of Gypsies,” Fouce says.

Soon after, Fouce was introduced to Jonathan Brent, execu-tive director and CEO of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Founded in Poland in 1925, and relocated to New York City in 1940, YIVO warehouses the largest repository in the world of artifacts representing the history of Jewish life throughout Eastern Europe, Germany and Russia.

After learning that YIVO possessed newly discovered letters and papers documenting Otto Frank’s e� orts between 1938 and 1941 to get his family out of Nazi-occupied Holland and into the United States or Cuba, Fouce had her next � lm: No Asylum.

Frank corresponded extensively with the U.S. State Depart-ment, his brothers in Chicago, his wife’s brother in New York City and his close friend Nathan Strauss, whose family owned Macy’s department store in Manhattan. Strauss agreed to pay thousands of dollars to help secure visas and documents, but it was not enough. In 1942, the Franks went into hiding for two years before they were discovered and sent to the camps where all but Otto Frank died.

“No Asylum is the backstory to Anne Frank’s diary. I’m producing it along with documentary Academy Award winner Maria Florio, the � lm’s creative producer,” Fouce says. “Everyone, including the U.S., turned their backs on the thousands of Jews trying to get out, thus sending them to their deaths.

“I had the good fortune to spend considerable time with Eva Schloss, Anne Frank’s stepsister, absorbing her amazing stories. Eva lived across the street from Anne growing up in Amsterdam. She, too, went into hiding, was later deported to Auschwitz, but sur-vived. Her mother, Fritzi Geiringer, married Otto after the war, so Otto became her stepfather,” Fouce says.

Cultural and religious discovery and revelation, communicated through a camera lens, long have been Fouce’s passion. She also feels a personal responsibility with her work.

“It’s extremely important right now in our world, with all of the su� er-ing going on from divisions, to shed light on the horrors of intolerance, while educating people to the benevolence of acceptance,” she believes.

“I enjoy people and cultures and the diversity among them. I also enjoy how, given the di� erences, there are great similarities as well. I hope, through my � lms, to be making a contribution toward opening the hearts and minds of people to the value of those similarities.”

For more information on Fouce and her latest e� ort, No Asylum, or to contact her, go to www.ParadiseFilmworks.com.

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