Directed by Jeanne Meyers
12.5 min | English | USA
Friday, September 19th, 2025 | 6:00PM Screening
Neighborhood House at Christ Church
20 N. American Street, Philadelphia, PA 19106
Eva’s life as a child in Budapest was filled with music, art and culture, until World War II began. She idolized her older brother John, who was in the Hungarian resistance. He was killed by the Nazi’s. When Hungarian Nazi’s invaded the Scottish boarding school for girls she was attending, Eva pleaded, “I am much too young and beautiful to die.” A soldier told her to run, and she escaped.
After the war, living in Soviet-occupied Hungary was difficult. At the age of 18, Eva boarded a train for Paris with a one-way ticket to Ecuador, where she had relatives.
Eva Haller: A Work in Progress highlights the philosophy and impact of Eva Haller, a 94 holocaust survivor and activist. Eventually, she made her way to the United States, where she vowed to honor her brother’s memory by becoming an advocate for human rights.
Director’s Bio
Jeanne Meyers
Director
Jeanne Meyers is the Co-Founder & Director of MY HERO
Jeanne is a filmmaker, a mother, a grandmother, a mentor and an activist passionate about creating and sharing media that can educate, inspire and empower young people to see their own potential to create positive change in the world.
Jeanne went to college with a Sony Port-Pak and worked while a student at Brown University. After graduation, she convinced the university to invest in media production equipment and was given the opportunity to mentor students and faculty interested in creating videos as the first director of Brown University’s Media Services. Later, Jeanne travelled around the world producing short videos for NBC News. She later attended the American Film Institute and then launched Big View Pictures, Inc to create family-focused entertainment. As a mother of young children and a producer of media Jeanne was interested in creating a space where people of all ages could share and discover films about real-life heroes working for positive change around the world.
In 1994 working with Emmy award-winning filmmakers Tom Weinberg, Skip Blumberg, Rita Stern and Joel Cohen, she produced a TV Pilot for a MY HERO TV Series with author Michael Crichton, teacher Laurel Greenberg and The Mayor and Fireman of NYC and Laguna Beach Life Guards. The producers were told the pilot was “great” by TV executives but that it was not commercially viable. So, in 1995, with the support of Karen Pritzker and Rita Stern, MY HERO was launched as a not-for-profit website. Since then, Jeanne has been directing this online experiment – growing a rich media library of inspiring stories, art and films and providing teachers and students with digital story tools and a safe platform to share their hero stories.
“If you obey all the rules,
you miss all the fun.”
Katherine Hepburn
Actor
thewomensfilmfestival.org 