Marc Fogel is finally free: interviewing the team behind ‘Did You Forget Mr. Fogel?’

Photo Credit Documentary Team of "Did You Forget Mr. Fogel?

On Feb. 11, after three-and-a-half years of being wrongfully detained in a Russian prison for possession of 0.6 ounces of medical cannabis for his lifelong back pain, American school teacher Marc Fogel was released and returned home to the United States. 

“I feel like when we were making the film, we kind of accepted this reality of… I never wanted to get my hopes up that he would come back,” said Max Karpman, director of the documentary short “Did You Forget Mr. Fogel?” and class of 2024 broadcast journalism and documentary alumnus. “When we were filming, there was zero hope, genuinely, and so for my own sanity, I didn’t want to — even though I had already gotten so incredibly attached. I was worried that if he didn’t make it back, it would destroy me.”

Karpman grew up and lived in Moscow from age three to 13. He attended the Anglo-American School of Moscow — an international school — and was a student at the time Marc Fogel was teaching there. He was even taught by Marc’s wife, Jane Fogel, for seventh-grade science. Karpman stated that everyone knew about Marc Fogel because “he was the best teacher;” everyone wanted to be in his class. Karpman moved to the U.S. and eventually attended Chapman University; Fogel was arrested in 2021 at the end of Karpman’s freshman year.

“I kind of had it in the back of my head that it would be cool to do the Marc Fogel documentary if he’s still there by the time I get to senior year, and he was still there,” said Karpman. 

In the summer of 2023, Karpman reached out to Marc Fogel’s family through the Free Marc Fogel website, sharing his backstory and asking if he could make a documentary about Fogel’s imprisonment for his senior project to raise awareness of the situation and put pressure on the government to do a prison swap. He got a response from Kelly, Marc Fogel’s niece. After some back-and-forth emails and a couple of Zoom calls, the family said yes. 

From left to right: Seth Karall, Kaylee Smith, Franny Hill, Max Karpman, Matthew Meredith;
Photo by Leah de Leon

Karpman pitched the idea to his “Community Voices” class during the first few days of his senior year at Chapman and was randomly paired up with his teammates. The team was able to secure an interview with Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia, for the documentary.

“He has two kids that went to the school in Moscow at the same time as me,” Karpman told The Panther. “I remember that because my sister said she had a crush on (the older one) back in the day. I remember he was my basketball coach for one of the Saturday leagues. I didn’t actually expect him to get back, but he saw the name Marc Fogel and responded to my email in, like, 25 minutes. That was a common theme. Anyone who knew Marc Fogel immediately wanted to help.”

The documentary tackles some serious topics and interviews people directly involved in the situation. The one moment burned into the memory of Franny Hill — a co-producer on the film and a class of 2024 broadcast journalism and documentary alumnus — is their main interview with Fogel’s sister Anne.

“When we finished that interview, we didn’t talk to each other for 40 minutes after because it was just so emotionally devastating to go through that,” Hill told The Panther. “We got to Pittsburgh in December, and we started this in August. It was, like, five months of relationship building. We sent weekly updates. We did almost weekly Zooms. We were always super clear and honest with our intentions about what we wanted to do here, and that helped a lot because by the time we got there, we weren’t strangers.”

While watching the documentary, there is a moment in the middle of an interview with Malphine Fogel, Marc’s mother, where the family receives a call from him in prison. That was the second time Marc Fogel had called that day — a rare situation. 

“So when that second call rings in the interview, that’s when it rang in real life,” Karpman said. “That’s not a sound effect. Then she got up, and it was a 15-minute call. Our DP (director of photography) Matthew Meredith just took the camera off the tripod and just followed.”

Karpman spoke with Marc Fogel on the first call earlier that day. He remembers Marc Fogel asking a lot of questions, like what got them all interested in the documentary and who they were interviewing. Karpman went down the list of students they were interviewing later in the month, giving him updates on all their lives. Marc Fogel even remembered Karpman’s sister and where she went to college.

“Did You Forget Mr. Fogel?” screened at the Capitol building over the summer, and more recently screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February. The constant reaction the team has been receiving throughout all of the screenings is how viewers haven’t heard of Fogel’s story before.

“I think people are a little taken aback by that,” said Seth Karall, the editor of the film and a class of 2024 broadcast journalism and documentary alumnus. “I also think a lot of people are just so surprised, not just with the politics of it, but just how moved they are by the family and what they have to say. More than anything, you’re seeing how the family is trying to handle this. It was pretty much a grieving process for them in real-time. I think a lot of people, even though they can’t relate to their specific situation, can relate to how a family grieves and how it can change the dynamics of a family.”

Kaylee Smith — a co-producer on the film and a year broadcast journalism and documentary major — stated that Marc Fogel’s situation was similar to that of Brittney Griner’s.

“Everyone’s heard of Brittney Griner,” said Smith. “They all know the WNBA star. And then you have Marc Fogel, who not a lot of people have heard about because he’s a school teacher. He’s from Pittsburgh. He’s not as famous as she is. People empathize with the story too, because he’s a father, he’s a husband.”

Smith also shared that seeing the response to the project and its impact is why they all feel so inspired to do documentaries in the first place.

“I think that’s kind of the ultimate goal that we all started off with when we joined this project because we were all in the hopes that Marc would be free,” said Smith. “So to see that this has actually happened, it's kind of crazy. And just to be on this journey together and also cultivate that relationship with the family too, and see that he’s finally back, feels so rewarding. Since we started this project, I think about them every day.” 

Smith continued: “When the news broke February 11, I was sitting at work, and I literally stood up and just went outside and had to take a lap because I couldn’t believe it was real. It’s a surreal feeling, and I’m so grateful that we got to be a part of this and feel like we actually made some sort of impact in a small way. I just can’t wait to see Marc.”

The @freemarcfogel and @marcfogeldocumentary Instagram accounts posted on Feb. 11, “MARC FOGEL IS COMING HOME! The White House announced today that it has secured the release of Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher who had been detained in Russia since 2021.” The caption was accompanied by a real-time photo of Marc Fogel coming home, courtesy of the United States Envoy for Hostages Adam Boehler.

The Wall Street Journal published an article post-release titled after the documentary: “Did You Forget Mr. Fogel?: An American Teacher Is Released From Russian Prison.” Other publications like The Washington Post and National Public Radio also posted heavily about the hostage exchange of Marc Fogel for Alexander Vinnik, a Russian co-founder of a popular bitcoin exchange, and the post-release interview Marc Fogel had with President Donald Trump.

The Panther asked the documentary team if they have a plan for another short documentary in the future to document Marc Fogel finally being released, his experiences in prison or even the possibility of a feature documentary.

“I think the thing we did best in this entire process was that the four of us created the best possible relationship with them, and it was always so pure and genuine,” Karpman said. “I honestly think we are really lucky with that. So I think, personally I want to make a feature about it, but I have to talk to Marc first, so that’s really up to him.”