<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"    Victor Kubicek, Eleanor Squillari, Derek Anderson. Photo: Getty Images   There are courageous women and then there&amp;#039;s Eleanor Squillari. Squillari was convicted Ponzi-scheme swindler Bernie Madoff&amp;#039;s secretary for 25 years. She sat just outside his office, several feet away from where the largest financial fraud in our history was perpetrated, yet was kept in the dark, being swindled along with most of his other clients, her life nearly destroyed with the lot. She is the central character in the new documentary In God We Trust by filmmakers Derek Anderson and Victor Kubicek. The film made its debut Friday night at the Tribeca Film Festival to a packed house that included Andrew Madoff, the disgraced financier&amp;#039;s surviving son (Mark Madoff committed suicide in 2010).    Also in the sold-out house were Boardwalk Empire&amp;#039;s Jack Huston, Shannan Click, Rosario Dawson, Arden Wohl, Tara Subkoff, Jamie Johnson, Gilles Mendel, and model Frederique van der Wal. &amp;quot;She&amp;#039;s an ordinary woman caught in extraordinary circumstances,&amp;quot; explained Kubicek. &amp;quot;She was that loyal employee who was dedicated day or night, any time of day in any time zone. She lost her job and really had her whole life fall apart.&amp;quot; Her life leading up to being employed by Madoff made her ripe for the picking. &amp;quot;Her mother abandoned her on the street when she was three, and her father was abusive,&amp;quot; Anderson explained. &amp;quot;This was her second job when she was a young single mom. She didn&amp;#039;t even realize how they were taking advantage of her. She thought they were part of a family.&amp;quot;  But Squillari very bravely took control of the situation\u2014for the sake of her survival. She opened up to us about it...  ELLE: You are very brave to put yourself out there. Eleanor Squillari: I wanted to tell my story. After I helped the investigators, I felt like I had some control back. I knew that if I could talk about it and do something about it, [I could] get control back. It was a good feeling. I didn&amp;#039;t think about where the film was going to go\u2014it didn&amp;#039;t matter. I wanted to tell my story. ELLE: There are many people in the film like you, that were not involved. But there are also many who were.  ES: There are people who I worked with for 25 years and thought I was friends with. It wasn&amp;#039;t just Bernie committing a crime\u2014so many people went into it\u2026the people you thought you were friends with\u2026your associates\u2026the people that looked the other way. It&amp;#039;s mind blowing.  If you know a Ponzi scheme is going on, in my opinion, you&amp;#039;re a monster. If you know securities fraud is going on, you&amp;#039;re a criminal, but there&amp;#039;s a distinction. I wanted to go about figuring out who the monsters were and who the criminals were. I couldn&amp;#039;t believe that everybody around me was involved. It&amp;#039;s still unbelievable. ELLE: You don&amp;#039;t seem like a woman who has been broken. ES: I took control right away. The next day I said, that&amp;#039;s it. If you do that, whatever happens is a good thing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/news/a23011/tribeca-film-festival-in-god-we-trust-premiere/>