|
A feature impact documentary project, directed by Harvey Stein Produced by Jerusalem NewYork Productions To help us finish, contribute any amount here. Thanks! Will premiere globally in December, 2024 |
At a time when Israel is often misrepresented in schools, communities, and online, "Green Rebels" will help change the way people think about one of the world's most innovative and humanitarian countries...this movie will infuse people with a new sense of pride in the only Jewish country on the planet.
- Roz Rothstein, CEO, StandWithUs International
Other excerpts:
- Short section with African ally, Zambian Bishop Scott Mwanza:https://youtu.be/UJ-HmnfSvKk
- A tongue-in-cheek section about Moses returning to Mt. Sinai: https://youtu.be/Z3uEuY5eYiM
- A humorous scene about a certain “Green Zionist”: https://youtu.be/ZKrWZnKHTqg
- Long Rwanda section, rough cut: https://youtu.be/7YdcKA1h71k
Our movie is the only feature documentary on the solar visionary Yossi Abramowitz (aka Kaptain Sunshine). Can an ambitious Israeli-American guy living in Jerusalem successfully integrate his dual passions for tikkun olam (Hebrew: “healing the world”), and for risky, business chutzpah - to bring solar-generated electricity to millions in Africa? How do he and his African partners work with the power brokers of their world, including assorted African ex-dictators and undependable global financial institutions - without losing their souls? |
“Green Rebels – Bringing Solar Energy to Africa” is an Israel/Africa story. It is a universal story of the power of solar energy to change peoples’ lives - and in these difficult times globally, it is an unabashedly positive story about Israeli activities in the world. It will be distributed in traditional ways, but also in more than 100 impact events - where a screening will be combined with an inspiring and educational discussion about all the story’s pressing issues. Abramowitz and his family immigrated to Israel from Boston in 2006, and soon after, Arava Power, his first Israeli solar energy company, inked the first deal to sell solar-generated electricity to Israel’s electric grid. His vision? For Israel to be a “sustainable Light unto the Nations.” |
A few years later, his company finished the first commercial scale solar field in sub-Saharan Africa (in Rwanda) – it now supplies 6% of the nation’s energy needs. Touchingly, it is situated in Agahozo Youth Village (which benefits from the sale of electricity), where several hundred orphans of Rwanda’s own genocidal war have studied and lived. Abramowitz’s Jerusalem company is now negotiating with 10 additional African countries for solar fields (everywhere from Burundi to Ethiopia to northern Nigeria). We have been filming Abramowitz’s adventures for over six years, and have exclusive filming access to all of his activities. Our team shot video throughout Burundi in 2022-23 - where Abramowitz successfully finished his second African solar field last year. Burundi has tested Abramowitz and his company: can obstacles of government corruption, violence, terrorism, and entrenched energy interests be overcome – Burundi is one of Africa's poorest nations. Right now, “energy poverty” in many African countries means most schools and health clinics have no electricity. Most homes don’t either – so all cooking and lighting comes from burning wood or charcoal in the home. Such “indoor air pollution” in Burundi causes more than 10,000 deaths (mostly children) every year. And there may be no trees left in Burundi by 2040, because of the huge numbers of trees cut down yearly. Our story also focuses on several of Abramowitz’s African partners - including Patrick Nzitunga (Abramowitz’s company’s Burundian staff member, who lives part of the year in Israel, with his Israeli wife and child). Nzitunga tells us, “For somebody that never had light in their life - at night, to see the light, is like a miracle - and it shouldn’t be a miracle in the 21st Century!” Another of his partners is Zambian Bishop Scott Mwanza, who has connected him to many African leaders. |
Bono will have a cameo. Another friend of Abramowitz's, singer Neshama Carlebach, will contribute two songs to the "Green Rebel" soundtrack. And we are now in talks with several well-known Black-Jewish actors to do our narration, and appear in several scenes.
Africa boasts 11 out of the 20 fastest-growing economies on the planet, has 700 million cell phones, and its billion-plus population will double by 2050. Abramowitz asks our camera, in his typically dramatic way, “Can the African continent one day be powered exclusively by renewable energy?”. Abramowitz and his small company want to be a pivotal force there. But can he be the pioneering “impact businessman” who can successfully combine his vision of tikkun olam (Hebrew, "healing the world") with his business chutzpah - to help make a substantially better world? |
Our ultimate goal: a powerful impact film:
An impact film project is both a successful film in the media marketplace, and a force creating positive social and political impact on a large scale. There is nothing like the interactive magic of people in a room watching and talking about a movie together.
Synergistic with our theatrical and streaming distribution, our Impact Campaign (in North America, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere) will consist of several hundred, often subsidized impact screening/discussions - in synagogues and other houses of worship, NGOs, green conferences, businesses, universities, and elsewhere. Impact events can be co-hosted, by say a synagogue and a church, or a synagogue and a Black organization. These events can galvanize such communities, for example, bringing large audiences to synagogues struggling for attendance, or bringing two communities together for the first time ever, to get to know each other.
These events will include participation by “Green Rebels” director Harvey Stein, and often, by Abramowitz himself, as well as by authorities in the host community. Events can open with short videos made by teens in the host community (thereby helping to get substantial teen audiences to come to the event). We are creating an engaging Discussion Guide, adaptable for anything from a single event, to an in-depth workshop of several sessions. It will be a tool to use our impact screenings to train community and campus leaders, who will be able to tailor their impact events to their own specific communities and community goals. Impact films invite maximum participation - in their goal of positively affecting the world.
If you are interested in hosting a future impact screening event, email us at: [email protected]
An impact film project is both a successful film in the media marketplace, and a force creating positive social and political impact on a large scale. There is nothing like the interactive magic of people in a room watching and talking about a movie together.
Synergistic with our theatrical and streaming distribution, our Impact Campaign (in North America, the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere) will consist of several hundred, often subsidized impact screening/discussions - in synagogues and other houses of worship, NGOs, green conferences, businesses, universities, and elsewhere. Impact events can be co-hosted, by say a synagogue and a church, or a synagogue and a Black organization. These events can galvanize such communities, for example, bringing large audiences to synagogues struggling for attendance, or bringing two communities together for the first time ever, to get to know each other.
These events will include participation by “Green Rebels” director Harvey Stein, and often, by Abramowitz himself, as well as by authorities in the host community. Events can open with short videos made by teens in the host community (thereby helping to get substantial teen audiences to come to the event). We are creating an engaging Discussion Guide, adaptable for anything from a single event, to an in-depth workshop of several sessions. It will be a tool to use our impact screenings to train community and campus leaders, who will be able to tailor their impact events to their own specific communities and community goals. Impact films invite maximum participation - in their goal of positively affecting the world.
If you are interested in hosting a future impact screening event, email us at: [email protected]
The ”Green Rebels” preview I saw paints a picture that is both humorous and very uplifting, and ultimately transforms audiences in their connection to both Israel and Africa.
- Rabbi Riqi Kosovske, Beit Ahavah Synagogue, Greater Northampton, MA
Director Harvey Stein’s recent Times of Israel blog post:
Kaptain Sunshine, Builder of Almost Impossible Bridges
Yossi Abramowitz’s recent articles:
We Will Build Back a Better, More Resilient Gaza Of Marshmallows and Covenant: The Uphill Battle in Africa to be a Renewable Light Unto the Nations
We Will Build Back a Better, More Resilient Gaza
Kaptain Sunshine, Builder of Almost Impossible Bridges
Yossi Abramowitz’s recent articles:
We Will Build Back a Better, More Resilient Gaza Of Marshmallows and Covenant: The Uphill Battle in Africa to be a Renewable Light Unto the Nations
We Will Build Back a Better, More Resilient Gaza
BIOGRAPHIES of key members of our team:
Harvey Stein (director, producer) is an Israeli-American filmmaker from New York City, now living in Jerusalem, where his impact film company, Jerusalem New York Productions (http://www.jerusalemny.com) is based. His last feature documentary, “A Third Way - Israelis and Palestinians as Neighbors”, about Rabbi Menachem Froman (the notorious “settler rabbi for peace”), Ali Abu Awwad, and others, has been shown extensively in impact screenings in both in the United States and Western Europe. It has also been shown in multiple Jewish Film Festivals. Vered Post (producer, co-writer) is an Israeli-American producer, writer and educator, and co-director of Jerusalem New York Productions. She co-produced Stein's last documentary, "A Third Way", including supervising the impact campaign. She has co-written several Israeli feature films, was a co-writer for the original Israeli/Palestinian Sesame Street, and has presented a variety of workshops using films and filmmaking, in Israeli schools and other institutions, as well in New York State. Kid-Fleury Ineza (Burundi producer) - Jewish in his soul and Burundian at heart, he lives in Burundi, and works as a communications expert in the East African community, where he also heads a consultancy group called "TIKKUN OLAM CONSULTING GROUP". Fleury firmly believes in the positive impact that "Green Rebels" can make. |
Investor inquiries welcome (you can take a look at our Investor Agreement here):

investoragreement.2024.greenrebels.pdf |
We are also looking for organizational partners to get involved now, and to host impact screening events when our film is finished, in September, 2024. Email us for more info.
CONTACT:
Email: [email protected]
U.S. Phone: 646-823-2228
WhatsApp: 972-50-212-8132
CONTACT:
Email: [email protected]
U.S. Phone: 646-823-2228
WhatsApp: 972-50-212-8132