Friday, April 9, 2010

E-mail from Pablo Chernov

In February, I received this e-mail from Pablo Chernov and forwarded it to someone that I thought could help in obtaining TV archive footage about Miguel Najdorf. But, in speaking recently with that person, I learned that he is unable to obtain the archive footage. I am posting Chernov's e-mail now, so that perhaps a reader of my blog can assist him. You can contact Pablo Chernov at his e-mail address chernov@fibertel.com.ar.

Dear Mr. West,

My name is Pablo Chernov, I'm writing to you from Buenos Aires. Nowadays working with Gastón Solnicki in two new documentaries, Mateo 00 and Mieczyslaw (one of them in postproduction and the other in development stage).

Mieczyslaw, is a documentary film about the Polish-Argentinean chess grand master Miguel Najdorf (1910-1997), who by chance escaped from the Holocaust, but lost his family there, he came to Buenos Aires in 1939 to play for Poland in the chess Olympics and two weeks after, the WWII started. This film is about chess, about Najdorf and also about the 20th century and its last surviving characters. Najdorf played against the greatest chess masters of the world, like Raúl Capablanca, Bobby Fischer and others, and also world leaders like Fidel Castro, Nikita Khruschev, Che Guevara and Winston Churchill.

Gastón Solnicki is Najdorf's maternal grandson, his first film, Süden, had a very successful film festival run: Buenos Aires, Vienna, Vancouver, Oslo, Hamburg, Lisbon, Madrid and New York, among others. I found your blog and considered that you might be interested in helping us in the search for finance among the US chess world, and also to look for TV archive footage about Najdorf, he travelled around the world playing chess and was filmed for TV many times.

Please keep in touch,

Many thanks in advance,

Hope this mail finds you well,

Best regards from Buenos Aires,

Pablo Chernov