Movieguide® Nominates 98-Year Old Producer’s First Movie: ‘It Was, In A Way A Miracle’
By Movieguide® Staff
For 99-year-old Larry Jaffe, making movies was never on his radar. However, at the age of 98, Jaffe produced the Movieguide® Award nominated movie, THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES.
Jaffe recently sat down with Movieguide® founder Dr. Ted Baehr and discussed how he broke into the industry at his age.
“I just turned 99,” Jaffe explained. “At that age, all the friends I have, I live in a retirement community, they all talk about things that happened in the past, I can talk about something that I’m looking forward to in the future. We have some more movies we’re talking about. We have a book that we’re doing, this keeps me happy, and keeps me active. And it makes all the difference in the world.”
Jaffe said that it took a “miracle” for him to get connected to his first project at 98-years-old.
“Newcomers just can’t get in,” he explained. “Well As luck would have it, we got connected with a writer who had connections in the movie business, and ultimately we got interested in his script which turned out to be THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES in miracles. So, in a way, it was an accident that I got connected.”
Jaffe graduated from Columbia University with a master’s in marketing and statistics and a magna cum laude graduate of Dartmouth College, which helped him in his efforts in the entertainment industry.
Although Jaffe is Jewish, he said that he loves the Christian community and recognized the importance of telling stories that focus on faith.
“I have a lot of faith. I can connect with this story,” he explained of his first movie. “There is a lot of family value in it. And faith is important to me, and I can see how it’s important to other people. So it was sort of natural for me to become interested in this particular Christian movie.”
“Jews make up about 5% of this community,” he said of Gainesville, Florida where he lives. “As a youngster, I lived in an Irish community, I had to hide my identity to avoid being beaten up there. This Christian community, they recognize how important their religion is, as it connects to the Jewish religion. And they ask me to find different things, and they recognize how connected we are, and it’s a pleasure to be with my Christian friends.”
Movieguide® nominated THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES ahead of the annual Movieguide® Award gala. A portion of the review reads:
THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES introduces a girl named Sara who has a strong Christian faith. Sara finds out she can perform miracles after she prays to God to heal a dead bird. Throughout the movie, Sara heals injured animals, blind children and children who are paralyzed or gravely sick. Sara’s family becomes concerned when Sara falls ill and faints. They find out Sara has an inoperable brain tumor that could take her life. After performing many miracles in her community, Sara will need a miracle to survive.
THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES is entertaining, emotional and inspirational. The cast is phenomenal. They do a great job representing the walk of faith in the characters they portray. THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES reignites the spark of faith through a strong Christian worldview stressing goodness, prayer, family, hope, and miracles. Sara heals animals and injured children, recounts Biblical stories such as Lazarus, and has hope and faith even in her darkest hour. Families will enjoy THE GIRL WHO BELIEVES IN MIRACLES, which reminds us that anything is possible with God.
Movieguide® previously reported on Jaffe’s time as Marine in the U.S. military:
Jaffe’s connection to the theme of miracles that plays out in the movie started when he joined the Marine Corps in World War II.
“There was a time when I was in the service, in the Marine Corps, when a couple of things happened where I was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Jaffe explained. “I was walking on a railroad track and I didn’t know that trains [still] came on it … all of a sudden, a force came along, picked me up, and put me on the platform.
“Seconds later, an express train came down the same track I was walking on. So the fact that I’m here … is a miracle.”
The 98-year-old filmmaker, whose wife of 72 years died in October 2020, said that faith played a role in his life before his military experience.
“Up until the time that miracle occurred with me, I was a man of faith, and I happen to have a belief in God [by] just my faith, I had no proof,” Jaffe explained. “But then, when this miracle happened and my life was saved, I had a fact.”
“So now, I not only have faith that’s just based on belief, but it’s based on an actual fact that I do believe that miracles still happen!” Jaffe added.
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