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An International Film Series, presented in collaboration with The Jewish Museum.
Welcome to the New York Jewish Film and Video Festival, 1997--the sixth such collaboration between The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center. The complexity and diversity of issues presented by the films and videos chosen for this year's festival reveal the changing face of Jewish identity around the world. A revival of films from the early part of the century illustrate an attitude about life for Jews who, in the new world, sought to hold on to the traditions and folklore of their home far away in the face of the new opportunities offered them. A LIFE APART: HASIDISM IN AMERICA,
A TICKLE IN THE HEART and NEVER, AGAIN, FOREVER particularly demonstrate how this earlier view of American Jewish life has been transformed by the Holocaust, the establishment of the State of Israel, the ensuing Intifada and continued anti-Semitism. The individual and communal reflections on these events has changed the way we talk about America, Judaism, anti-Semitism and assimilation.
This festival has been made possible by generous gifts from The Martin and Doris Payson Charitable Foundation and The Jack and Pearl Resnick Foundation.
calendar
program notes and times
EVERLASTING JOY OR THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF SPINOZA
(Igal Bursztyn, Israel, 1996, 35mm, 90m, subtitled)
Intellectual slapstick as audacious as it is high-spirited, the first full-length feature by respected documentary filmmaker and critic Igal Bursztyn mixes philosophical treatise and Mediterranean comedy in transposing the story of Baruch Spinoza and his search for the "Eternal Happiness of Man" to contemporary Tel Aviv.
Sunday, January 12: 2 and 6 pm
Tuesday, January 14: 4:30 pm
BENYA KRIK
(Vladimir Vilna, Ukraine, 1927, 35mm, 70m, silent with piano accompaniment)
New York premiere
Isaac Babel adapted his own tale of Odessa's Jewish underworld in this long-lost 1927 silent feature. The politically incorrect New Jack City of its particular time and place, banned within weeks of its release, BENYA KRIK has been newly restored and subtitled by the National Center for Jewish Film.
Sunday, January 12: 4:15 pm
Tuesday, January 14: 7 pm
INTIMATE STRANGER / NOBODY'S BUSINESS
(Alan Berliner, USA, 1991-1996, 16mm, 120m)
NOBODY'S BUSINESS completes Alan Berliner's trilogy dealing with family history and memory. In this most recent work, which will be shown alternately with the earlier FAMILY ALBUM (1986) and INTIMATE STRANGER (1991), Berliner takes on his reclusive father and transforms the story of a complex and troubled man into a work of universal resonance.
Sunday, January 12: 8:15 pm
Thursday, January 16: 6:15 pm
FAMILY ALBUM / NOBODY'S BUSINESS
(Alan Berliner, USA, 1986-1996, 16mm, 120m)
Tuesday, January 14: 2 pm
TEARS OF STONE
(Hilmar Oddsson, Iceland, 1995, 35mm, 114m, subtitled)
A true story of love and careerism, TEARS OF STONE centers on the doomed marriage of concert pianist Annie Riethof, the beautiful daughter of a German-Jewish industrialist, and the Icelandic composer Jon Leifs who, frustrated by a lack of recognition, succumbs to the siren song of Nazi Germany. This powerfully unsentimental movie, which is stunningly shot, is underscored by Leif's elemental music and graced by Ruth Olafsdottir's heart-wrenching performance as Annie.
Tuesday, January 14: 8:30 pm
Wednesday, January 15: 2 pm
Thursday, January 16: 9 pm
DAY OF THE BATH
(Dominique de Rivaz, Ukraine, 1994, 35mm, 20m, subtitled)
Based on the events at Babi Yar, this impassioned visual rendering focuses on the strong bonds among women as they battled for survival in their final days. Of the 33,771 Jews killed at Babi Yar during the last days of September 1941, most were women and children. Their deaths are eloquently memorialized in de Rivaz's beautifully shot black and white film.
with
CAN MEMORIES BE DISSOLVED IN WATER?
(Charles Najman, France, 1996, 35mm, 90m, subtitled)
Using reparation funds allotted by the German government for survivors of the Holocaust, Solange Najman, the subject of this documentary made by her son, tries to cleanse herself of the past at an Evian spa for better health. Surrounded by other survivors and the glistening French countryside, Ms. Najman dances through the film, slowly disclosing the horrors of the past, which she informs us can never be cleansed from her memory.
Wednesday, January 15: 4:15 pm
Saturday, January 18: 7 pm
ROMANCE OF A HORSE THIEF
(Abraham Polonsky, USA, 1971, 35mm, 100m)
US premiere of director's original cut
When this lush and lusty adaption of Yiddish novelist Joseph Opatoshu's tale was released in 1971, The New York Times wondered if the world would ever be ready for a comedy of Jewish smugglers, Polish revolutionaries and Russian Cossacks. The movie is set in 1904, although the mood is equally redolent of 1968. The stellar cast includes Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach, Lainie Kazan, Jane Birkin and David Opatoshu.
Director Abraham Polansky present for Q&A after each screening.
Wednesday, January 15: 6:30 pm
Thursday, January 16: 4 pm
HOLY WEEK
(Andrzej Wajda, Poland, 1996, 35mm, 94m, subtitled)
Based on the novel by Jerzy Andrzejewski, who also authored the novel from which Wajda's classic Ashes and Diamonds was adapted. During Easter Week 1943, the first seven days of the Warsaw ghetto uprising when the city is in flames, a Jewess asks sanctuary of Jan, a Warsaw intellectual. Wajda's film looks with unusual candor at the behavior and character of Poles living on the safe side of the ghetto.
Wednesday, January 15: 8:45 pm
Thursday, January 16: 2 pm
Saturday, January 18: 9:15 pm
JEWISH SHTICKS IN AMERICAN FLICKS
(Curated by Murray Glass, USA, 1903-1940, 16mm, B&W, 90m, with live piano accompaniment)
This compendium of early film comedy includes such rarities as Bard and Pearl, The Delicatessen Kid, Jane and Little Moritz, Oh, My Operation!, and Taxi Tangle. These short films highlight such well-known screen personalities as Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, Maurice Schwartz, and Burns and Allen.
Sunday, January 19: 2 pm
Tuesday, January 21: 6:30 pm
A LIFE APART: HASIDISM IN AMERICA
(Uren Rudolvsky, USA, 1996, 16mm, 90m)
Observing the observant is the theme of this unusual film that explores the complexities of Hasidic life. Those who adhere to and those who stray from the life offered by Hasidic Orthodoxy relay their stories in this provocative film about Jewish religious life in America. In telling this story about Hasidic arrival and survival in America, the film provides a window into an insular world rarely seen by outsiders.
Sunday, January 19: 4 pm
Monday, January 20: 4:15 pm
Tuesday, January 21: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
NEVER, AGAIN, FOREVER: THE JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE
(Danae Elon and Pierre Chainet, USA, 1996, 16mm, 60m)
This is a film about hatred. Tracing the story of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) both in Brooklyn and the occupied territories in Israel, this highly charged film looks at the chayas (wild animals) who, with their leader Meir Kahane, began acts of terrorism against Blacks, Arabs, and Soviet diplomats. The evolution of wrath and its consequences form the heart of this disturbing film.
With
AVODA
(Helmar Lurski, Israel, 1930s, 35mm, 30m)
In this masterpiece of Socialist-Zionist filmmaking, Helmar Lurski (with a score by Paul Dessau) creates a symphony for "work." Dedicated to the pioneers in Palestine, this film, which was shot on location in the 1930s, is the Socialist-Zionist variation on the Soviet Montage cinema. The euphoria of Zionist pioneers "making the desert bloom" is captured through rhythmic editing, harmoniously orchestrated with the exhilarating music of hammers. This idea of Avoda/Work becomes the true hero of the film.
Sunday, January 19: 6:30 pm
Monday, January 20: 8:45 pm
Tuesday, January 21: 2 pm
THE ABRAHAM FILE
(Abraham Segal, France, 1996, 35mm, 102m, subtitled)
In this extraordinary documentary about the patriarch Abraham, Abraham Segal opens the files on the biblical figure, entombed in Hebron, who is regarded by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike as their father. Segal brilliantly investigates the theological, aeshetic and political implications of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Throughout the Middle East and Western Europe, scholars offer their often contradictory interpretations of this story to Segal, who hopes one day to be able to close the file on this illusory figure.
Sunday, January 19: 8:45 pm
Monday, January 20: 2 and 6:30 pm
ARGUING THE WORLD
(Joseph Dorman, USA, 1996, video, 106m)
A portrait of four prominent Jewish intellectuals--Irving Howe, Irving Kristol, Daniel Bell and Nathan Glazer--and the world they inhabited. Weaving personal reminiscence, archival footage, images of New York, and interviews with friends, critics, and historians, the film explores the passions, the issues, and the era that helped shape New York intellectual life.
Wednesday, January 22: 2 and 6:30 pm
A TICKLE IN THE HEART
Stefan Schwietert, Germany, 1996; 87m
Back in their day, the Epstein Brothers--Max, Willis and their kid brother Julie (only 70)--were the "Kings of Klezmer Music," stars of the Hasidic wedding circuit. But it's never too late for international stardom, as demonstrated by this handsomely shot and impeccably recorded music documentary, following the still-swinging Epsteins on gigs in Florida, Borough Park, and Berlin.
Wednesday, January 22: 4:15 and 8:45 pm
A TICKLE IN THE HEART continues for a one-week run at The Walter Reade Theater following the New York Jewish Film/Video Festival at the following times:
Thursday, January 23: 2 and 4 pm
Saturday, January 25: 4 and 6 pm
Sunday, January 26: 5, 7 and 9 pm
Monday and Wednesday, January 27 and 29: 2, 4, 6 and 8 pm
Thursday, January 30: 2, 4 and 9 pm
screenings at the jewish museum, january 26 - 30, 1997
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