about the series |
film descriptions and times |
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This international festival is made possible by generous support from The Martin and Doris Payson Charitable Foundation; The Liman Foundation; The Jack and Pearl Resnick Foundation; the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs; Mimi and Barry Alperin and other funders.
Join us for 13 great days of illumination and inspiration at the 2004 New York Jewish Film Festival. This year's selections offer a pluralistic vision of modern Jewish identity as they speak to our ongoing need to investigate, record and, above all, celebrate the Jewish experience. Films like BLACK ISRAEL testify to a culture of diversity and inclusion. Others, like SHALOM IRELAND, reveal a people existing as part of, rather than apart from, the global community. Works by Argentinians, Swedes and Lower East Siders - from documentary to historical drama to lighthearted romantic satire - make up an eclectic cross-section of contemporary Jewish filmmaking.
Organized by Rachel Chanoff, Chair, Film Festival Selection Committee; Stuart Klawans, film critic, The Nation; Richard Peña, Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center; Mohini Sara Shapero, Film Festival Coordinator; and Aviva Weintraub, Director of Media and Public Programs, The Jewish Museum.
Acknowledgments: Lia van Leer, Jerusalem Film Festival; Erin Stamos, Peter L. Stein, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; Susan Alper, Montreal Jewish Film Festival; Josh Ford, Danette Wolpert, Washington Jewish Film Festival; Sara Rubin, Kaj Wilson, Boston Jewish Film Festival; Sharon Rivo, Mimi Krant, National Center for Jewish Film; The Israel Office of Cultural Affairs in the USA; Janis Plotkin; Alla Verlotsky, Seagull Films; Juliane Wanckel, Goethe-Institut NY; Olli Chanoff, Lori Cearley; J. Hoberman, The Village Voice; The Jewish Museum staff; The Film Society of Lincoln Center staff; The Jacob Burns Film Center staff; Makor staff.
FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS AT THE JACOB BURNS FILM CENTER
January 18 - February 5
Jacob Burns Film Center, 364 Manville Rd., Pleasantville, New York. For information and tickets, call 914.747.5555 or
visit www.burnsfilmcenter.org
ADDITIONAL SCREENINGS AT MAKOR/ STEINHARDT CENTER OF THE 92ND STREET Y
January 22 and 26 - 29
35 West 67th Street (between Columbus and Central Park West).
For information and tickets, call 212.601.1000 or
visit www.makor.org
Please note: New Walter Reade Theater prices are in effect: $10 general public, $7 students with valid photo ID, $6 FSLC & Jewish Museum members, $5 seniors, M-F before 6pm only.
ALMOST PEACEFUL
NY Premiere
Michel Deville, France, 2002, 94m; French with English subtitles
This beautifully constructed drama explores the Jewish experience among Holocaust survivors in postwar France. As a tailor revives his business by hiring mostly Jewish workers, a series of sub-plots illuminates their struggles to re-establish the quotidian aspects of life, along with larger issues of love and guilt. Prolific director Michel Deville (La Lectrice) brings deft touches of gentle humor to this ultimately hopeful film.
Preceded by
A Good Uplift
NY Premiere
Faye Lederman, Cheryl Furjanic, Eve Lederman,
U.S., 2003, 13m; video
In a Lower East Side lingerie shop, owner Magda presides over an endless procession of women of all shapes and cup sizes, races and religions in search of the perfect brassiere and a dose of old-fashioned self-esteem.
Wed Jan 14: 1; Thurs Jan 15: 6;
Mon Jan 19: 5:30
BLACK ISRAEL
NY Premiere
Maurice Dores, France, 2003, 85m, video; English, French, and Hebrew with English subtitles
Documenting communities of sub-Saharan African, African American and Caribbean Jews from Israel to Paris to Harlem, this engaging film presents an enlightening vision of the pluralistic nature of modern Jewish identity.
Wed Jan 14: 3:45 & 9:15
HIDING AND SEEKING: FAITH AND TOLERANCE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST
World Premiere
Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky, U.S., 2003, 97m; English, Yiddish and Polish with English subtitles
An Orthodox man ventures to Poland with his two sons in an attempt to expand their narrow worldview in this surprising and thoughtful documentary. The visit, in which the young men encounter the family that hid their grandfather 60 years earlier, illuminates the many faces of prejudice, tolerance and redemption. By the directors of A Life Apart: Hasidism in America (NYJFF 1997).
Preceded by
Untitled 2 (The Last Jew of Edenbridge)
U.S. Premiere
Solomon Nagler, Canada, 2003, 5m; video
A lyrical portrait of the last member of a Jewish farming colony in rural Canada who guards the precious relics of an idealistic past.
Wed Jan 14: 6:15; Thurs Jan 15: 1; Sun Jan 18: 6
SAMY AND I
NY Premiere
Eduardo Milewicz, Argentina, 2002, 85m; Spanish with English subtitles
Talented director Eduardo Milewicz brings to mind Woody Allen and Pedro Almodóvar as he paints a lush and vivid picture of cosmopolitan Buenos Aires in this cleverly endearing romantic comedy. The film stars Argentinian sensation Ricardo Darin as a nebbishy writer whose life gets a much-needed shot of adrenaline when a dazzling young woman transforms him into an unlikely television star.
Thurs Jan 15: 3:45; Sat Jan 17: 9:30;
Sun Jan 18: 9; Mon Jan 19: 12:30
HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE PANTHERS?
NY Premiere
Nissim Mossek, Israel, 2002, 109m, video; Hebrew with English subtitles
Thirty years ago, Nissim Mossek set out to document the Israeli political protest movement called the Black Panthers - young Mizrahi and Sephardi men who fought to expose racial and class bias in Israel. The film mysteriously disappeared, but a copy recently turned up. Combining pieces of the first film and new footage of the surviving members, it throws light on schisms in Israeli society that inflamed protest in the 1970s and persist today.
Thurs Jan 15: 9:15; Mon Jan 19: 2:30
WHEN GRANDPA LOVED RITA HAYWORTH
NY Premiere
Iva Svarcova, Germany, 2000, 90m; Czech and German with English subtitles
It is 1969, the first winter after the Prague Spring. As three astronauts fly to the moon, 13-year-old Hannah and her family land in the West German economic wonderland. Hannah herself would be happiest returning to her grandfather, portrayed by the late great Vlastimil Brodsky of Closely Watched Trains. A darkly humorous story of post-Communist adolescence.
Sat Jan 17: 7; Sun Jan 18: 1:45; Tue Jan 20: 3 & 9
A VILNA LEGEND
NY Premiere of restored print
Zygmund Turkow, 1924 / George Roland, 1933, Poland, 1924/1933, 60m; Yiddish with English subtitles
This is a rare screen gem: a 1924 silent film embedded within a 1933 Yiddish talkie. The cast reads like a "who's who" of the Yiddish stage and includes Ester-Rokhl Kaminska and her daughter Ida Kaminska, as well as Joseph Buloff as the sharp-witted narrator and commentator. A tale of frustrated love and destiny, mostly filmed on location in Vilna, this is a precursor to the 1937 classic The Dybbuk.
Preceded by
Cantor on Trial
World Premiere of restored print
Sidney M. Goldin, U.S., 1931, 10m; Yiddish with English subtitles
In this classic Yiddish spoof, a synagogue committee searches for a chazan (cantor) for the High Holiday services. Rejecting one unsuitable candidate after another, they are finally confronted with a modern chazan promising "pep and jazz." Hilarity, as they say, ensues.
Sun Jan 18: 3:45 (intro by J. Hoberman, The Village Voice); Sun Jan 25: 1 (intro by Sharon Rivo, National Center for Jewish FIlm)
MOMENTS - ISRAEL
NY Premiere
Dina Zvi Riklis, Eliav Lilti, Shlomit Altman, Oded Davidoff, Gur Bentvitch, Nir Miterraso, Thaer Zoabi, Anat Even, Eyal Zaid, Uri Bar-On, Amos Gitai, Tsipi Houri, Rafi Bukaee, David Perlov, Idan Alterman, Nira Sherman, Sausan Quoud, Uri Barbash, Ariella Azouly, Eyal Halfon, Israel, 2002, 56m, video; Hebrew, Arabic, and Russian with English subtitles
This entrancing collection of 17 three-minute films addresses a wide range of issues in an even wider range of styles, with many of Israel's most talented filmmakers contributing to the collage.
Preceded by
The School Photo
US Premiere
Gabriella Bier, Sweden, 2002, 37m, video; Swedish with English subtitles
The nightmare of being 12, flat-chested and a dork at the Jewish school in Stockholm in the 1970s.
Mon Jan 19: 8:30; Wed Jan 21: 3:30
Thurs Jan 22: 7 & 9 (at Makor)
KAFKA GOES TO THE MOVIES
US Premiere
Hanns Zischler, France/Germany, 2002, 54m; video
Franz Kafka was an avid movie-goer who very early on recognized the power of motion pictures as an art form. In this illuminating documentary, acclaimed German actor Hanns Zischler traces Kafka's love of cinema through journals and clips from films Kafka viewed.
Preceded by
Dziga and His Brothers
US Premiere
Yevgeni Tsymbal, Russia, 2002, 52m, video; Russian with English subtitles
The fascinating and tumultuous lives of three brothers who made cinema history - Moisey Mikhail, Boris and David Kaufman, aka Dziga Vertov, best-known for the still-revered "cinematic poem" Man With a Movie Camera - are the focus of this documentary. Using rare archival footage from Russian state film archives and private collections, the brothers' lives are traced from Bialystock to Moscow, Paris and Hollywood.
Tue Jan 20: 12:30 & 6; Thurs Jan 22: 3:30
CARAVAN 841
Zion Rubin, Israel, 2001, 52m, video; Hebrew with English subtitles
Moshe, an 11-year-old Ethiopian boy, languishes in a decrepit trailer park in western Galilee waiting for his mother to arrive. An older Torah scholar and a free-thinking African American Jazz musician befriend Moshe, offering him two very different visions of personal salvation.
Preceded by
The Unshod Man
US Premiere
Laurence Attali, France/Senegal, 2003, 32m; French with English subtitles
An allegory with biblical undertones, romantic tension and a great sense of fun, this video features the extraordinary Senegalese musician Cheikh Lô, who stars as a bandleader named Booz. When Booz's trumpet player dies one night on stage, Esther, the man's passionate and adamant Israeli widow, insists that Booz marry her immediately.
Wed Jan 21: 12:30 & 6:30;
Sat Jan 24: 9:30
THE COMMANDMENT KEEPERS: WORK IN PROGRESS
Marlaine Glicksman, U.S., 2004, 60m; video; work in progress
A sneak preview of a fascinating documentary about the Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, an African American synagogue founded in 1919 in Harlem. The community is recognized but not necessarily embraced by rabbinical authorities; its members struggle to hang on to their faith and identity despite the obstacles.
The screening of this work in progress will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmaker and participants from the film.
Wed Jan 21: 8:30
PURITY
Anat Zuria, Israel, 2002, 63m, video; Hebrew with English subtitles
Breaking a taboo of silence rooted equally in 2,000-year-old laws and contemporary social pressures, PURITY takes a bold look at female sexuality within the context of Jewish religious life. Director Anat Zuria sensitively confronts a seldom documented purification ritual and asks the very personal religious and moral questions the ritual raises.
Preceded by
Tikkun
NY Premiere
Taliya Finkel, Israel, 2002, 51m, video; Hebrew with English subtitles
This portrait of the charismatic Rabbanit Leah Kook, whose religious discourse has earned her a fiercely loyal following in Israel, offers a rare view of the spiritual lives of a community of ultra-orthodox women.
Thurs Jan 22: 12:30 & 6:15
THE BIRCH-TREE MEADOW
Marceline Loridan-Ivens, France/Germany/ Poland, 2003, 91m; French with English subtitles
Anouk Aimée stars in this melancholy but ultimately uplifting film about an Auschwitz-Birkenau survivor who returns to the camp in an attempt to banish haunting memories of the past. Director Loridan-Ivens, who wrote the film with Jeanne Moreau, has created a riveting tale from autobiographical material.
Preceded by
Terezín, 1944
Raquel Stern, U.S./Czech Republic, 2003; 8m
A short, evocative drama about children at the concentration camp Terezín who experience a moment of bittersweet creative freedom.
Thurs Jan 22: 8:45; Sat Jan 24: 7
Sun Jan 25: 3:15
A HUNGARIAN PASSPORT
Sandra Kogut, France/Brazil/Hungary, 2001, 72m; English, Hungarian, French and Portuguese with English subtitles
An indefatigable Brazilian filmmaker in Paris, whose grandparents fled Budapest for Rio in 1937, investigates her Jewish and Hungarian roots in this energetic documentary. Her desire to regain Hungarian nationality -- embedded in the quest for the elusive passport -- becomes a provocative meditation on cultural identity.
Preceded by
Loss
US Premiere
Nurit Aviv, Germany, 2002, 30m, video; German with English subtitles
Provocative Berlin intellectuals discuss the void left in Germany's post-war cultural landscape by the disappearance of the country's Jews. The director, born in Israel to German Jewish parents, gives these conversations a dreamlike quality with images shot from a train window in and around Berlin.
Sun Jan 25: 6; Tue Jan 27: 12:30
ALILA
US Premiere
Amos Gitai, Israel/France, 2003, 122m; Hebrew with English subtitles
A chronicle of the ordinary and not-so-ordinary days of the inhabitants of a rundown Tel Aviv apartment building. The intertwined lives of these disparate characters, including a troubled young woman in an illicit affair, a divorced couple, a Holocaust survivor, and a Filipina housekeeper capture an up-to-the-minute, turbulent and candid view of contemporary Israeli life. The latest dramatic feature from provocative director Amos Gitai (Kadosh, Kippur, Kedma).
Tue Jan 27: 3:30 & 9
THE BARBECUE PEOPLE
NY Premiere
David Ofek & Yossi Madmoni, Israel, 2002, 102m; Hebrew with English subtitles
Independence Day, Israel, 1988. A Jewish immigrant family from Iraq gathers for a picnic. As the film unfolds, long forgotten secrets about a clandestine affair between lost lovers and a covered-up murder deep in the past come boiling to the surface. Packed with intrigue - and barbeque - this fast-paced feature will keep you guessing until the last frame.
Sun Jan 25: 9; Tue Jan 27: 6;
Wed Jan 28: 7 & 9 (at Makor);
Thurs Jan 29: 7 & 9 (at Makor)
ROSE'S SONGS
US Premiere
Andor Szilágy, Hungary/Italy, 2002, 98m; Hungarian with English subtitles
In the autumn of 1944, with Budapest in the cruel grip of the Arrow Cross, a Jewish opera star sings each night from the high tower of his villa, where he has barricaded himself. His songs inspire hope in a group of Jews hiding in the house - though he never leaves the tower, and they never see his face. A powerful drama based on a true story.
Wed Jan 28: 1; Thurs Jan 29: 3:30 & 8:30
JAMES' JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
NY Premiere
Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, Israel, 2003, 90m; Hebrew, English and Zulu with English subtitles
A young Christian man is chosen by his village in Africa to undertake a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, but what he finds upon arriving confounds his image of the holy city. James is taken directly to prison from the airport as a suspected illegal worker, only to be rescued from deportation by a mysterious benefactor, and his journey becomes a poignant adventure in the shadowy world of Israel's undocumented laborers - and ultimately raises questions about keeping the faith. By the director of Martin (NYJFF 2001).
Wed Jan 28: 3:30 & 8:30
SHALOM IRELAND
NY Premiere
Valerie Lapin Ganley, U.S., 2003, 57m; video
Inspired by the discovery that her great-grandparents were the first Jewish couple married in Watford, Ireland, the filmmaker explores Ireland's surprising and vibrant Jewish community. Among many fascinating narratives in this documentary is that of Irish Jewish contributions to the founding of both Ireland and Israel.
Preceded by
France Divided
NY Premiere
Barbara P. Barnett and Eileen M. Angelini, U.S., 2002, 38m, video; French with English subtitles
This complex and compelling portrait of French complicity and resistance during World War II presents interviews with seven people whose accounts of the period differ dramatically - a Holocaust survivor, three hidden children, two historians including Serge Klarsfeld and Resistance leader Lucie Aubrac.
Wed Jan 28: 6; Thurs Jan 29: 1 & 6
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film descriptions and times |
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