No Place on Earth


No Place on Earth is a 2012 documentary film produced, written and directed by Janet Tobias, based on Esther Stermer's memoir We Fight to Survive. It was released theatrically in the United States on April 5, 2013.

Synopsis

In 1993, NYPD officer and caving enthusiast Chris Nicola visited Ukraine to explore the Verteba and Priest's Grotto caves, and found evidence that they had recently been inhabited by humans. After discovering that the caves were used by three Jewish families, comprising 38 people, led by matriarch Esther Stermer, escaping The Holocaust, he embarked on a decade-long quest to find survivors. The film features interviews with some of the 36 survivors and/or their descendants, now living mainly in New York City and Montreal. It includes a segment in which Tobias brings some of the survivors, the oldest of whom was a nonagenarian, back to the caves.

Release

The film was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, the Hamptons International Film Festival, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, and the Jewish Film Festival Berlin.

Accolades

Its screenwriters, Janet Tobias and Paul Laikin, were nominated for Best Documentary Screenplay from the Writers Guild of America.

Cast