AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR
40 minutes • To be released Fall 2025

BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN
A Feature-Length Documentary or Multi-Part Series • To be completed in 2026

Directed, Produced, Filmed and Edited
By Robbie Leppzer
Turning Tide Films
Robin Lloyd, Executive Producer

PLAY VIDEO EXCERPT (3 minutes)

            Due to the urgency of the on-going genocide in Gaza, we're taking the unusual step of releasing a 40-minute short film, AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR, this fall 2025, ahead of the release of our feature-length or multi-part documentary series, BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN, which will be completed in 2026.

            Having experienced the horrors of war firsthand as a child in Hitler’s Germany, Peter Schumann, now age 91 and still going strong, has devoted his entire adult life to creating art and theater works to protest war and social injustice.

            AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR traces Peter Schumann's artistic response to war stemming from his childhood experiences in World War Two to his first use of giant paper maché puppets to protest the Vietnam War in the streets of New York City in the 1960s to his travels to Palestine in the mid-2000s to conduct community theater workshops to his current paintings and theater productions protesting the genocide in Gaza.

Peter Schumann, founder, Bread & Puppet Theater.

            “Filmmaker Robbie Leppzer is the master chronicler of contemporary movements of protest and social change. His latest work, AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR, focuses on the art of puppeteer/painter Peter Schumann, founder of the Bread and Puppet Theater, who describes himself as a “war child,” having grown up in Nazi Germany, and how this propelled him into a life of activism and opposition to war. The subject of his current work is the ongoing genocide in Gaza, as seen through the eyes of this artist. Leppzer has captured the haunting tragedy that Schumann expresses through his large-scale theater productions and paintings. Beautifully filmed and immaculately edited with deeply evocative music, he has managed to capture the power, emotion and outrage of the live performance. This is filmmaking of the very first order.”

            – Sut Jhally, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Founder/Executive Director, Media Education Foundation

Bread & Puppet at Gaza anti-war march, Brattleboro, Vermont.

HELP US RAISE $40,000 to launch AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR this Fall 2025

            Your gift will enable us to complete the final mastering, including archival footage licensing ($13,000), music licensing ($2,000), final sound mixing and color correction ($5,000) and hiring a grassroots distribution and promotion team ($20,000) that will launch the film's distribution and set up online and in-person grassroots community screenings of the film in collaboration with local, regional and national peace groups.

Gaza bedsheet painting by Peter Schumann.

            In the turbulent times we are living in, cultural icons of resistance are more important than ever, and Peter Schumann and the Bread and Puppet Theater embody a spirit of creativity, resilience, and inspiration.

HELP US RAISE $250,000 to complete editing our feature-length or multi-part documentary series, BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN, which will be completed in 2026

Film Synopsis

BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN explores the prolific creative life and visionary work of this internationally-renowned artist and his boundary-breaking theater.

The film tells the multi-faceted story of Peter Schumann, now 91 and still going strong, who has significantly impacted the world of theater, art and political protest.  His giant paper-mâché puppets and epic-scale performances about contemporary social issues have captivated audiences worldwide for over 60 years.

With unique behind-the-scenes access, we have filmed over eight years and have 350 hours of original footage, in addition to a deep trove of 16mm, video and photo archives. 

            The film cuts back and forth between the present-day operations of the theater and the past to explore the life of this charismatic, trailblazing artist and the indelible effect he has had on so many.

Archival footage of the 1960s and 1970s traces the genesis and evolution of the theater, founded in New York City in 1963 by Peter and Elka Schumann. Bread and Puppet emerged as one of the landmark theaters of the era through the use of gigantic puppets in street protests against the Vietnam War. 

Peter Schumann directing the Bread and Puppet pageant, Glover, VT.

          In the 1970s, the theater moved to a 250-acre former dairy farm in Glover, Vermont, where huge spectacles were performed during one weekend each summer with hundreds of puppeteers and tens of thousands of people in the audience. We see footage from the 1980s and 1990s, including otherworldly scenes of hundreds of white-clad puppeteers lifting up a huge Mother Earth puppet and then singing a traditional song as they walk in a circle.

            We cut back and forth between interviews with several longtime puppeteers filmed 40 years ago and today.  "I was really an idealistic kid and I wanted to be a part of changing the world and I felt that Bread and Puppet was my way of doing it," states Michael Romanyshn, a puppeteer since 1975.

            We see Peter and Elka Schumann welcoming a large multicultural group of young apprentices, who have come from around the world.  They have just one week to create acts that will be performed to their first public audience.  We then see various young people rehearsing skits, with interactions by Schumann giving his directorial comments.

            In addition to Schumann's personal story, the film will be interspersed with the experiences of many young apprentices and devoted longtime puppeteers, who come from multiple countries to participate in the theater. The film presents a patchwork of interviews and scenes of life at the theater's farm, including rehearsals, public performances, Schumann baking six-foot loaves of bread, painting in his artist's studio and directing productions.

Puppeteers rehearsing at the Bread and Puppet farm, Glover, VT.

            We see Schumann celebrating his 90th birthday with family and friends, in the midst of his latest creative blast – incessantly creating a painting a day and directing a flurry of new theater productions for the touring troupe.

            This is a story about a remarkable artist and his creativity and resilience, and the power of art to challenge the status quo and imagine a better world.

            The film ends on an uplifting note, exploring the concept of a word coined by Schumann – “possibilitarian” – someone who sees unbridled possibilities to create change.

About the Filmmakers

Director / Producer / Cinematographer / Editor – Robbie Leppzer

           Robbie Leppzer has been making documentary films for his entire career that chronicle people who stick their necks out to work for grassroots social change in the world. 

           Robbie is an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker and radio producer who has directed over thirty documentaries over the past 45 years. His critically acclaimed feature-length and short documentaries, as well as commissioned television news magazine segments, about contemporary social issues and multicultural themes have been broadcast by CNN International, NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation), the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, HBO/Cinemax, PBS, CNN, Sundance Channel, HDNet, Link TV, Free Speech TV, National Public Radio, and Pacifica Radio. 

           Leppzer’s previous feature-length documentary, POWER STRUGGLE, chronicled the successful grassroots citizens’ effort to shut down a problem-plagued nuclear power plant in Vermont. The film was broadcast nationally on Free Speech TV and Link TV, as well as across Vermont on Vermont PBS.

           For more information about POWER STRUGGLE or to watch a film trailer, visit: www.PowerStruggleMovie.com

           For more information on Robbie Leppzer’s previous documentaries, visit our website at www.TurningTide.com  

Executive Producer – Robin Lloyd

          Robin Lloyd, of Green Valley Media (www.greenvalleymedia.org), based in Burlington, Vermont has been making films and videos for 25 years. From her early experimental films to her videos on people’s struggles around the world, she has sought to bring social issues to life. Her collaborations with nonprofit organizations such as Witness for Peace and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom have resulted in the production of documentaries that are used both inside and outside the classroom. She is founding member of the Peace and Justice Center in Burlington, Vermont.

           Robin extensively filmed the Bread and Puppet pageants in the 1990s, which will provide our documentary with rich archival material. Her films about Bread and Puppet include GATES OF HELL, MEN WITH TEETH, CONVENTION OF THE GODS, BROKEN OFF LETTER and COLUMBUS AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER. 

Peter and Elka Schumann.

How YOU Can Help!

         We need to raise $290,000 to launch AN ARTIST RESPONDS TO WAR and to complete editing for BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN

         YOUR TAX-DEDUCTIBLE CONTRIBUTION will help us finish and launch our feature-length film or multi-part documentary series!

• Tax-deductible online donations can be made here, by clicking on the Donate Panel above. 
• Tax-deductible checks should be made out to our tax-exempt 501 (c) (3) fiscal sponsor: “From The Heart Productions” and write “Bread and Puppet Film Project” in the memo line.

         Mail to: Turning Tide Films, 2509 Shaftsbury Hollow Road, North Bennington, VT 05257

• Help us organize a fundraising party for BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN
• If you can introduce us to a potential major donor, please contact us.

Contact:

Robbie Leppzer • [email protected] • (802) 447-0035

Thank you for donating to BREAD & PUPPET: THE THEATER OF PETER SCHUMANN!