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These are the films that played during the 15th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.
7, 8, 2 Until Further Notice
Documentary, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 18 minutes
Director: Na'ama Marinberg
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Yifat, her husband Yedidia, and their three little boys live on a remote mountain, 782 meters above sea level in the West Bank. The nearest Jewish settlement, Itamar, is 15 minutes away. For the time being they are entirely alone. First prize, Montreal Jewish Student Film Festival 2002.
A Family Affair
Comedy, USA, 2001, 35mm, 108 minutes
Director: Helen Lesnick
Language: English
Cast: Helen Lesnick, Erica Shaffer, Arlene Golonka, Michele Greene (LA Law), Michael Moerman, Suzanne Westenhoeffer
After another traumatic breakup with her capricious girlfriend, New Yorker Rachel Rosen (Helen Lesnick) decides to make a fresh start cross country in San Diego where her mom happens to be president of the local PFLAG (Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) chapter. Rachel is determined to find "Mrs. Rightowitz," butafter several disastrous blind dates finally breaks down and lets her mother set her up with Christine Peterson (Erica Shaffer) by all appearances a typical California girl. Despite her aversion to anything "West Coast" she soon finds herself falling for the beautiful blonde. Still, Rachel's friends and family know she's bound to screw things up. Even if she won't admit it, she still carries a torch for her ex-girlfriend Reggie (Michele Green). Will Rachel run from another committment or make it to the chuppah? VARIETY called Lesnick "a budding talent," and described the film as "Woody Allen trifecta reconfigured with sharp wit.... Lesnick, like the Woodman, defends herself with caustically dry humour."
A Festival Under War
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Video, 17 minutes
Director: Yaron Shane
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
A devoted group of staff and volunteers struggle to bring the 2001 Jerusalem Film Festival into being while the Intifada rages only miles away. This documentary provides an illuminating view of life in today's Israel and questions the role of art in times of conflict.
A Russian Dance
Documentary, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 38 minutes
Director: Boris Levinzon
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Shay is a 28-year old Russian immigrant. He has been in Israel for ten years. He looks like an Israeli, he feels like an Israeli, he even has an Israeli girlfriend. When his parents suddenly decide to return to Russia he's forced to reconsider his own identity.
A-Maiseh (A Tale)
Comedy, Israel, , Video, 20 minutes
Director: Itshak Sverdlov (Ma'ale School of Film)
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Mendel, a Holocaust survivor, is helped by his Filipino aide Jose. One day the police come looking for foreign workers whose work permits have expired. Mendel's children are ready to turn Jose in, but Mendel decides to save him at any cost.
Adio Kerida
Documentary, USA, 2002, Beta SP, 58 minutes
Director: Leib Cohen
Language: Spanish and English with English subtitles
Distinguished anthropologist Ruth Behar returns to her native Cuba to profile the island's remaining Sephardic Jews and chronicle her family's journey to the U.S. as Cuban-Jewish exiles. Borrowing from a Sephardic love song "Adio Kerida" (Goodbye My Love), this poignant documentary highlights themes of expulsion and departure that are at the crux of the Sephardic legacy. Based on intimate interviews with Sephardic Jews in Cuba and Miami, she debunks myths about the country's Jewish community and incorporates an anthropoligcal approach to unravel the influence of interfaith marriage, Afro-Cuban santeria, tourism, and the embargo on contemporary Cuban-Sephardic cultural identity. The result is a bittersweet, lyrical, and often humorous protrait of modern-day Cuba that few know exists today.
Advice and Dissent
Comedy, USA, 2002, 35mm, 21 minutes
Director: Leib Cohen
Language: English
Cast: Eli Wallach, Rebecca Pidgeon (State and Main), and John Pankow (Made About You)
A frustrated business man, Jeffery Goldman (John Pankow) tries to end his hopeless marriage by asking his local Rabbi (Eli Wallach) to place a curse on his wife Ellen (Rebecca Pidgeon). The rabbi refuses, but gives Goldman peculiar advice on how to do away with her, setting into motion a series of unexpected events.
Aliyah -- Coming Home
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, England, 2002, Beta SP, 25 minutes
Director:
Language: English
As tensions rise in the Middle East, a BBC News documentary follows a young British Jew as he leaves London to make Israel his new home. This former Habonim member shows us his new life. What was his motivation for emigrating and how does he feel now that he's living in Israel?
Amen
Vancouver Premiere
Drama, France, 2001, 35mm, 130 minutes
Director: Costa-Gavras
Language: English
Cast: Ulrich Tukur (Solaris), Mathieu Kassovitz (Amelie), Ulrich Muhe, Michael Duchaussoy
Newly commissioned SS Lieutenant and respected civilian chemist Kurt Gerstein discovers that the Zyklon B pellets he has developed to disinfect soldiers' drinking water are being used to gas interred Jews by the thousands. Recruited to help streamline the death camp process by a team of SS officers, Gerstein secretly approaches the Swedish Consulate, the German Protestant community, and finally Vatican representatives in the hopes of exposing this unspeakable crime. The only one who listens is Father Ricardo, a young Jesuit priest with deep family connections at the Vatican. Ricardo promises Gerstein he will alert the Pope to the Jewish genocide in hopes that the pontiff will reveal and denounce the Final Solution to the Christian world. A powerful new drama from award-winning director Costa-Gavras (Z, Missing, Music Box).
Between the Lines
Documentary, Israel, 2001, Beta, 58 minutes
Director: Yifat Kedar
Language: Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles
A voyage into the unique world of Amira Hass, a reporter in the Palestinian Territories for the respected Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz. Hass is the only Israeli journalist living in Ramallah, just 50 kilometers north of Jerusalem. From her rented apartment, she is a unique source of information for her readers in Israel and around the world. What is revealed is a journalist obsessed with the truth, a single woman in a traditionally male domintated society, and the only child of a mother who survived the Holocaust. The film follows Hass for two years, beginning in 1999 when there was a period of optimism and euphoria in Israel until the political situation begins to worsen.
Choosing Exile
Documentary, Australia, 2003, Video, 55 minutes
Director: Marc Radomsky
Language: English
Filmmaker Marc Radomsky is third generation South African. His grandfather emigrated from Lituania to escape pogroms. The family established their roots in Johannesburg and prospered. However, Marc and his wife see that growing lawlessness and crime in post-Apartheid South Africa has driven the white community into gated communities where armed guards, attack dogs, and barbed wire are the brutal signs of the need for increased security. Marc and his wife Vivianne have made the painful decision to emigrate to Australia. Their close-knit family, threatened with seperation, tries to prevail upon the couple to reconsider. But leave they do, to an apparently welcoming new country and hopefully a brighter future. Choosing Exile is a portrait of some of the current conditions in South Africa, as well as an intense portrait of the pain of emigration.
Clean Sweep
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 90 minutes
Director: Oded Davidoff
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Yael Hadar, Alon Abutbul
A romantic police thriller with smarts. Aya, a tough and beautiful undercover cop, is sent to bring down a notorious mafia crime boss. When she begins to suspect that the superior office she's having an affair with has set her up, she decides to get even and sets in motion a full-scale battle of the sexes. An enormously popular feature from Israel.
Cohen's Wife
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 24 minutes
Director: Nava Heifetz (Ma'ale School of Film)
Language: Hebrew with Russian subtitles
Cast: Emuna Sevi, Omer Koren, Esther Svidensky
Rivki Cohen, a young ultra-orthodox woman, opens the door to a strange man seeking Tzedaka. She is raped. Now she is awaiting the Rabbinical Court's decision to see whether her husband, Motle, must divorce her since according to Jewish Halacha a Kohen's wife who is raped is henceforth forbidden to her husband.
Come Home: The Jewish Community of Glace Bay
World Premiere
Documentary, Canada, 2003, Beta SP, 22 minutes
Director: Joel Kranc
Language: English
The rise and fall of the once-thriving Jewish community in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia. The film takes a historical perspective and ends with the 100th anniversary celebration of the local synagogue.
Desperado Square
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 97 minutes
Director: Benny Torati
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Muhammad Bakri (Beyond the Walls, Cup Final) as Avram, Ayelet Zorer (Dybbuk of the Holy Apple Field, Florentene) and Nir Levi (Yanna's Friends)
The story of a community of Greek Jews in a small town near Tel-Aviv. Twenty-five years after his father's death, Nisim dreams that his father Morris orders him to reopen the family owned neighbourhood cinema. When a mysterious man returns to town, family secrets and a romantic mystery are soon brought to light. A stellar cast including prominent Arab-Israeli actor Muhammad Bakri (Beyond the Walls, Cup Final) as Avram, Ayelet Zorer (Dybbuk of the Holy Apple Field, Florentene) and Nir Levi (Yanna's Friends). The film features a delightful soundtrack of Greek, Israeli, and Indian music. Winner of five Israeli Academy Awards.
Eicha
Drama, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 21 minutes
Director: Eliezer Shapiro (Ma'ale School of Film)
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Eicha is a young religious girl living in a typical West Bank settlement. Her unique and unusual name, Eicha, is the Hebrew title of the biblical scroll of lamentations that is read on Tisha B'av, the annual fast day commemorating the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem 2000 years ago. Tisha B'av is also Eicha's birthday. Upon reaching the age of 18, she decides to change her name and try to establish her own identity. Favourite of the Jury of Ma'ale 2001. First Prize for Short Israeli Film, Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival 2002.
Embrace Me (Chavki O'Tee)
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 48 minutes
Director: Shaul Meislich
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
A Profile of Jo Amar, acclaimed Moroccan liturgical poet, singer, and composer. The film revists the scenic regions of his youth in Morocco and traces the story of his aliyah to Israel, his entry into the Israeli music community and his performances around the world.
Eye of the Reporter
Documentary, Israel, 2002, , 26 minutes
Director: Guy Lynn
Language: English, Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles
A film about media objectivity and the Middle East as seen through the eyes of three broadcast journalists covering the same event on the same day. The West Bank and Arab Issues correspondent of Channel 2 (Israel's only independat channel); a Palestinian journalist living in Jericho and covering the event for a Saudi Arabian TV station; and the bureau cheif of Britain's Sky News find and present their angle on the same event and how they tell the story of the horrors and absurdities of daily life in Hebron.
Eye of the Storm
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 50 minutes
Director: William Dackman
Language: English, Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles
Eye of the Storm takes you to the core of the most ancient ideological struggle known to mankind. A conflict of beliefs, where the centre stage of this furious controversy focuses on control of a tiny patch of land in Jerusalem's Old City. The Temple Mount is the central issue blocking agreement between Israelis and Palestinians in their attempts at finding peaceful solutions to their respective national aspirations. Mindful of dangers threatening global peace, almost every nation in the world has involved itself in trying to find an acceptable solution. For the first time, in footage never before revealed to the public, Eye of the Storm takes you to the centre of the conflict.
Falafel
Documentary, Canada/Israel, 2002, DigiBeta, 11 minutes
Director: Avner Levona
Language: Hebrew, English, with English subtitles
"Why falafel made in Canada does not taste as good as the one made in Israel?" asks the house painter. "A well made falafel is as good as viagra," opines an elderly falafel stand owner, while a rabbi claims that a well prepared falafel carries "on a higher level, an artistic signature, the soul" of its maker. It is clear that falafel is much more than just food.
Geburtig
Drama, Austria, 2002, 35mm, 115 minutes
Director: Robert Schindel and Lukas Stepanik
Language: German, Yiddish, and English with English subtitles
Various characters linked by events in the past come together in 1987 as Austria is making headlines over the "Waldheim Affair." Hermann Geburtig, a Holocaust survivor, is a successful songwriter living in New York. He is hounded by Susanne Ressel, a Viennese journalist determined to get him to testify against a former concentration camp supervisor. Hans, the son of an infamous death-camp physician, is tormented by memories of a childhood so close to a world of mass murder and Danny, a Jewish cabaret singer obsessed with Austria's sordid past sings of his own hometown: "Once the world capital of anti-Semitism, Vienna has become the capital of forgetting." Complex and witty, the film rewards patient viewing. Austria's entry for the 2003 Academy Awards in the category "Best Foreign Film."
Giraffes (Jirafot)
Drama, Israel, 2001, 35mm, 115 minutes
Director: Tzahi Grad
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Maital Dohan, Liat Glick, Tinkerbell (Total Love, Ha'Hesder), Micha Selektar, Gal Zeid, Elisheva Michaeli, Avraham Selektar
The film begins with a chase and a woman falling from a building. Two and half years earlier in the story we meet Efrat, Dafna, and Avigail: three single women in their twenties, living in the same apartment building in Tel-Aviv. One evening, fate strikes. The driver meant to take Dafna to a film set picks up Avigail; Dafna is picked up by Efrat's blind date, and Efrat feeling deserted starts roaming the streets and gets involved in a mysterious and violent incident that ends up with the death of a cab driver. Efrat's disappearance makes her the only suspect in the driver's murder. Will her secret be revealed? Winner, 2001 Best script award Jerusalem International Film Festival.
God is Great and I'm Not
Comedy, France, 2002, 35mm, 95 minutes
Director: Pascale Bailly
Language: French with English subtitles
Cast: Audrey Tautou (Amelie), Edouard Baer, Julie Depardieu, Catherine Jacob, Mathieu Demy (Once We Grow Up - 14th VJFF)
France's reigning sweetheart Audrey Tautou (Amelie) plays Michele, a flakey fashion model with a spiritually searching nature. She tries Buddhism; it feels fine, but she still is incapable of stemming the resentment she feels towards her mother. Then she meets Francois, a secular Jewish veterinarian somewhat ambivalent of his traditions and she soon--much to his annoyance--is studying hebrew and nailing mezuzahs to his door. First-time feature director Psacale Bailly explores Jewish identity, interfaith relationships, and the ethnic make-up of modern France in this delightful comic romance.
Haymishe Viking
Documentary, Australia, 2002, Beta, 7 minutes
Director: Lesley Sharon Rosenthal
Language: English
Can traditional Jewish food ever make its debut on the international gourmet scene? Does it take a modern-day Viking to get it there?
I Am Joseph Your Brother
Documentary, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 60 minutes
Director: Eli Tal-El and Amy Kronish
Language: English
How has Catholic liturgy related to the Jewish People in the past? And how does it relate today? What was the Vatican's relationship to the Holocaust as it unfolded? And what is the position vis a vis the Holocaust today? I am Joseph You Brother discusses the complex issues behind these questions and investigates the significant changes that have been made in recent decades. The film makes use of interviews with dignitaries, religious leaders, and educators both Jewish and Catholic. The visuals include footage never seen before from the Vatican Archives and powerful, emotional moments from the Pope's recent visit to Israel such as scenes of the Pope at the Western Wall, the holiest of Jewish religious sites and at Yad Vashem, the Israeli national memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.
It's About Time (Zmani)
Documentary, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 54 minutes
Director: Ayelet Menahemi and Elona Ariel
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
"It's About Time", asks one simple question: what is Israeli time? The subject of national jokes, Israeli time can be as fleeting as "back in a minute", as reliable as "won't take long," or as procrastinatory as "what's the rush?" Israeli time ticks inexorably through a glorious past, an uncertain future and a dubious present. This superb documentary is a collage of dialogues from a dizzying diversity of personages -- Olympic swimmer, old married couple, news editor, lifeguard, psychiatrist, waitress, and men who play dominoes together year after year. With a jazz quartet setting the beat and a stand-up comic providing much more than jokes, this stunning film uses an inventive postmodern structure, the specificity of the video medium, and extraordinarily tight editing to open up a narrowly national question into the universal realm of philosophy. And along with everything else, it's a laugh a minute. Best Documentary, Jerusalem International Film Festival 2001. Best Script, Jerusalem International Film Festival 2001.
Last Dance
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, USA, 2002, DigiBeta, 84 minutes
Director: Mirra Bank
Language: English
Cast: Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are), Arthur Yorinks, Robby Barnett, Johnathan Wolken, Pilobolus
Ferocious. Funny. In your face. Last Dance goes behind the scenes of a stormy collaboration between the iconoclastic dance company Pilobus and legendary author-illustrator Maurice Sendak (Where the Wild Things Are). Over months of improv work in the studio, they transform a haunting Holocaust legacy into a stunning, disturbing dance-theatre piece: A Selection. Last Dance weaves verite rehearsal, probing interviews, rare Holocaust footage, and thrilling performance into a unique revelation of the creative process. Shot on widescreen digibeta with total access to the film's subjects, minimally lit and handheld except for stage performance, the film delivers up-close intense storytelling. In Last Dance, Sendak -- with his Night Kitchen Theatre partner Arthur Yorinks -- and Pilobus artistic directors Robby Barnett, Michael Tracy, and Johnathan Wolken show us the high stakes tenacity and wit that drive the creative process when serious artists work together. NY Post: "Riveting! Skillfully interweaves acrimonious skirmishes with Pilobus at work and harrowing historical footage not only entertaining but also frighteningly instructive."
Mother V
Drama, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Shahar Rozen
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Hana Vazana, a religious Moroccan Jew in her 60's, leaves her small Israeli town to visit her son Menahem who is locked up in solitary confinement near the Mediterranean charged with revealing state secrets. She sets out, despite family opposition, to bring her son to apologize to his father who is lying in intensive care. Along the way, fraught with obstacles, she joins up with a young Bedouin who helps her learn the truth about her son, about herself, and to achieve independence for the first time in her life. Best TV Drama -- Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2001. Best Production -- Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2001. Best Actress -- Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2001.
Motl Der Operator
Drama, USA, 1939, 35mm, 88 minutes
Director: Joseph Seiden
Language: Yiddish with English subtitles
Cast: Chaim Tauber, Malvina Rappel, Yetta Zwerling, Jacob Zanger, Joseph Schoengold, Gertrude Krause, Seymour Rechtzeit, Cantor Leibele Waldman and Joel Feig's famous choir
This classic melodrama captures the sentimental, emotional characters and the convoluted plots and fantastic coincidences that dominated the Second Avenue Yiddish theatres. Focusing on a labour dispute in the garment district of New York City, the film survives as an important historical document highlighting the hardships of the Jewish immigrant experience in America. Motl, a poor labourer, loving husband and new father, leads cloak makers in a strike for better working conditions. When he is severely injured by strikebreakers, his wife Esther and infant son are left destitute. "A sorrowful and tragic melodrama in the best Yiddish tradition..." -- The Film Daily.
My Terrorist
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 58 minutes
Director: Yulie Cohen Gerstel
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
In 1978, filmmaker Yulie Cohen Gerstel was wounded in a terrorist attack by a Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A flight attendant for the Israeli airline El Al, she was hijacked along with other crewmembers on their way to London. Fahad Mihyi and his partner killed one flight attendant and wounded three members of the crew including Gerstel. In a remarkable twist of faith, twenty-three years later she began questioning the causes of violence between Israelis and Palestinians and started to consider helping release the man who almost killed her. An inspiring story of forgiveness, Gerstel's poignant documentary is a moving testimony of human compassion and a call for peace. Jerusalem Film Festival, Special Jury Prize.
Nicholas Winton: The Power of God
Documentary, Czech Republic, 2002, 35mm, 64 minutes
Director: Matej Minac
Language: Czech with English subtitles
A gripping award winning documentary that describes how Nicholas Winton saved the lives of 669 children in 1939 -- their families now number 5000 -- by transporting them from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia to his native Britain. Distinguished CBC journalist and narrator Joe Schlesinger, a resuced child himself, describes Winton as a man of "ordinary human decency". Director Minac also wrote and directed last year's Festival hit All My Loved Ones, a dramatization about one of the children Winton saved. Using interviews with the children now grown and Winston himself, archival footage, photographs, and sparing reconstructions, Minac has crafted a film that resonates with optimism. Winner of the 2002 International Emmy award and the Trilobit Prize from the Czech Republic and winner of the Slovak Film Critic's prize IGRIC.
Only in America
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 72 minutes
Director: Ron Frank
Language:
An inside look at Joseph Lieberman's landmark political progress from the 2000 Gore/Lieberman presidential race to his recent announcement that he will run for the top spot in 2004. Standing as witness to the Jewish-American process of emergence from an ethos of persecution to the threshold of the White House, Lieberman's story epitomizes the American dream. With Senatory Lieberman's campaign and personal history as its centerpiece, the documentary paints a picture of the Jewish-American experience at the turn ot the millenium. In the midst of a rally in Santa Fe a hand holds up a sign reading "Viva La Chutzpah," summing up the phenomenon created by a Vice Presidential campaign in which Joe Lieberman, an unabashedly Jewish candidate, crossed over ethnic and religious lines bringing out people of majority and minority backgrounds in record numbers. Fascinating and filled with insight and humour.
Paradise Grove
Comedy, UK, 1999, 35mm, 93 minutes
Director: Charles Harris
Language: English
Cast: Ron Moody, Rula Lenska, Leyland O'Brien, Lee Blakemore
A quirky film about life death, and the bit in the middle, Paradise Grove is a beguiling blend of tragedy, romance, and wry Jewish wit. Set in an eccentric north London Jewish old age home, the film revolves around three generations of the same family. There's cantanerous old Izzie Goldberg (Ron Moody), who's dying and is not at all happy about it, his hedonistic daughter Dee (Rula Lenska), the home's owner, a cross between a Sixtis flower child and a traditional Jewish mother -- and there's her teenage age son Keith (Leyland O'Brien), the mixed-race outcome of a disastrous marriage. Keith's identity crisis forms the film's emotional core: he's trying to build personal and religious bridges with his grandfather while starting a relationship with the mysterious Kim (Lee Blakemore), who turns up one morning looking for shelter, and who offers the promise of a life outside Paradise Grove. He'd love to get away from his domineering mother but can he abandon Izzie? And why does Kim keep a loaded gun in her handbag?
Poker Face
Drama, Israel, 2001, Beta, 52 minutes
Director: Eitan Anner
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
For the past 16 years, every Friday night Anna, Alex, and three couples meet for their weekly poker game. Alex is not yet 60 but his memory problems are getting worse. The group decides to vote to decide whether Alex will have to give up his seat at the table. Anna knows that if they lose, Alex will be miserable. She puts on her poker face and goes to war. An award winning episode from The Voices from the Heartland, Israeli Drama Series.
Power of Balance
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 55 minutes
Director: Amit Mann and Tom Barkai
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Choreographer Adam Benjamin creates a new work for professional and disabled dancers.
Purity (Tehora)
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta, 63 minutes
Director: Anat Zuria
Language: Hebrew, English with English subtitles
Israeli filmmaker Anat Zuria examines the "Tharat Hamishpaha" (family purity), the ancient laws and rituals shaping women's lives and sexuality within Jewish Orthodoxy. Giving a subtle voice to female rebellion within the religious world, Zuria presents her own experiences adhering to Orthodox practices, as well as those of her friends Natalie, Katie, and Shira. At the heart of their stories is the "nidda" -- a ten to twelve day period restricting women from touching or engaging in sexual intimacy with their husbands. It culminates with a trip to the "mikveh" (cleansing baths). Their openness to the camera breaks a profound taboo of silence rooted in 2000-year old laws, as they speak to the rigidity and confines of Orthodox rituals. Beautifully incorporating lyrical and meditative images with interviews, "Purity" presents the hidden struggle of religious women to maintain their cultural traditions and individual needs within the framework of strict Jewish law. "I had a hard time understandingbasic terms such as impure and pure. I never believe I was impure during menstruation nor did I believe I was pure when I emerged from the mikveh drenched in chlorine. But life with an Orthodox partner enriched me with 20 years of ritual bathing and 20 years of a cycle of separation from my partner. This baggage of 20 years of Purity is the source of this film" -- director Anat Zuria. 2002 Jerusalem Film Festival Mayor Award for Best Documentary.
Samy Y Yo
Comedy, Argentina, , 35mm, 85 minutes
Director: Eduardo Milewicz
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Samy Goldstein (Ricardo Darin) is a neurotic, frustrated monologue writer for a faltering talk who in Argentina. Every year he begins his novel and every year fails in the attempt. And to make matters worse, he's rapidly approaching the age of 40, still unmarried and struggling to get along with his mother and sister. Feeling that it's now or never to make a change, he leaves the show. Returning home one night, distraught over his options he runs into his opposite, a chaotic young woman who mistakes him for her father's psychiatrist. Will Mary (Rita Cortese) be exactly what Samy needs to get his life back on track? A charming comedy-romance.
Schmatte Mazel
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Australia, 2000, Beta, 10 minutes
Director: Lesley Sharon Rosenthal
Language: English
This fanciful documentary traces the legacy of the Australian shmatte (garment) industry.
Shanghai Ghetto
Documentary, USA, 2002, 35mm/DigiBeta, 95 minutes
Director: Donna Jenkowicz-Mann, Amir Mann
Language: English
In April 2000, filmmakers Dana Janklowicz-Mann and Amir Mann sneaked into China with a digital camera to shoot at the site of the Jewish Ghetto in Shanghai unchanged since WWII. The took with them two survivors of the Ghetto back to where they lived during the war under Japanese occupation. They filmed never before seen footage of Shanghai for what would later become part of the documentary. In the late 1930's German Jews were trying to escape Nazi persecution but country after country closed its doors to them. The only place in the world that didn't require entrance visas was the international city of Shanghai. Fleeing for their lives, Jewish refugees journeyed to the exotic city, arriving penniless and unprepared for life in the Far East. They thought that soon they would find a way to go back to the world they had left. Little did they know that WWII would change their lives forever, and that they had embarked on what would become a miraculous and inspiring survival story. Academy Award Winner Martin Landau narrates the film. Music is by composer Sujin Nam, with Karen Hua-Qi Han. an internationally renowned Er-Hu (pronounced ARE-who) virtuoso, Han performed on the soundtracks for The Joy Luck Club and The Last Emperor which won an Oscar for Best Original Music.
Song of a Jewish Cowboy
Documentary, USA, 2002, Video, 18 minutes
Director: Bonnie Burt
Language: English, Yiddish with English subtitles
Scott Gerber, an unlikely mix of Yiddish and cowboy cultures, learned Yiddish and progressive songs from his mother and grandmother. A descendant of the left wing Petaluma chicker ranchers, Scott carries on the Yiddish and ranching traditions and proudly works in agriculture today. He rides the range and sings cowboy and Yiddish songs at Simcha Sunday and at an Irish bar. And he's looking to meet a nice Jewish girl. An intimate portrait of someone who bridges two very different worlds.
Tantric Logic
Comedy/Romance, Canada, 2002, Digital Video, 13 minutes
Director: Peter J. Nadler
Language: English
A lonely middle-aged computer geek searches for romance through the Internet personals and has a close encounter of the new-age kind. He wants love but gets far more than he bargained for: a soul-altering rendezvous with a fruit wielding tantric-sex goddess that changes his life forever.
The Barbecue People
Drama, Israel, 2002, 35mm, 102 minutes
Director: David Ofek, Yossi Madmony
Language: Hewbrew with English subtitles
Cast: Victor Ida, Raymond Abecassis, Makram Khoury, Israel Brite, Dana Ivgi, Gili Sa'ar, Yigal Adika
Israel Independence Day 1988. A family of immigrants from Iraq gathers for a barbecue on a scenic hill above town. In a style reminiscent of Pulp Fiction, a story of two generations begins to unfold and intersect taking us from the sordid murder of a B movie actress to a secret affair between lost lovers. As each story develops we get to know the various members of the family. Jerusalem Film Festival Best Picture nominee.
The Collector of Bedford Street
Documentary, USA, 2002, Beta SP, 34 minutes
Director: Alice Elliott
Language: English
Larry Selman is a fundraiser and community activist. He is also mentally challenged. When Larry suffers a personal crisis, his neighbours reach out to help. An inspirational testament to the ability of communities to build tolerance and change lives. Academy Award nominee for Best Short Documentary 2003.
The Golem
Drama, Germany, 1920, DVD, 86 minutes
Director: Paul Wegener/ Carl Boese
Language: Silent
Cast: Paul Wegener, Albert Seinruck, Ernst Deutsch, Lyda Salmonova
Join us for a special 15th Anniversary screening of The Golem, originally shown at the very first Vancouver Jewish Film Festival back in 1989. Based on a legend in Jewish mysticism: in 16th Century Prague community leader and astrologer Rabbi Loew (Albert Steinruck) forsees doom for the Jews. When the emperor decrees a pogrom of the Jewish ghetto, blaming the Jews for a plague, Loew molds a forbidding clay Golem (Wegener) to convinve the king to repeal the edict. The Golem's influence on future horror films was significant, particularly James Whale's Frankenstein. Chilling, visuall dazzling story of the supernatural. This Kino on Video edition of The Golem was recently restored utilizing materials from the Museum of Modern Art, the Filmmuseum of Munich, Gosfilmofun of Moscow, and the Cineteca Italiana of Milan.
The Great Yiddish Love
Comedy, USA, 2002, Digital Video, 15 minutes
Director: Diane Nerwen
Language: Yiddish with English subtitles
Set in Berlin and New York's Lower East Side, The Great Yiddish Love stars self-exiled Marlene Dietrich and her Nazi-endorsed replacement Zarah Leander. This story of seduction, love, and betrayal has been reassembled from Hollywood, German Ufa, and Yiddish films from the thirties and fourties.
The Pawn Shop
Comedy, USA, 1916, Video, 22 minutes
Director: Charlie Chaplin
Language: Silent
Cast: Charles Chaplin, Henry Bergman, Edna Purviance, John Rand, Albert Austin, Wesley Ruggles, Eric Campbell, James T. Kelley, Frank J. Coleman
The Pawn Shop is one of Chaplin's best-known and best-loved shorts, highlighted by his operation on an ailing alarm clock.
The Sky is Falling
Drama, Italy, 2000, 35mm, 95 minutes
Director: Andrea Frazzi, Antonio Frazzi
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Cast: Isabella Rossellini (Left Luggage -- 11th VJFF), Jeroen Krabbe (Left Luggage), Elena Safonova, Veronica Niccolai
Summer 1944, in an elegant villa in Tuscany. Penny and her sister Baby, who have lost both their parents in a car accident are taken to live with their aunt and uncle in the country. The aunt, the sister of the girls' mother, is married to a striking Jewish German intellectual lover of music and the arts. The story is seen through the eyes of Penny, the elder sister. It is with her that we explore their happy world within their villa, and the peasant world outside it, and finally the growing awareness of a cruel, inescapable reality leading up to the tragic conclusion of the war.
The Smile of Isaac (Le Sourire D'isaac)
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, France, 2002, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Stephan Rabinovitch
Language: French, Yiddish, English, Hebrew, with English subtitles
What is Jewish humour? To answer this thorny question, director Stephan Rabinovitch sets out on a journey of initiation which takes him -- and us -- from New York to Tel Aviv in the attempt to define a genre of humour which has its roots in the profound humanism of the Jewish tradition. Via interviews with ordinary people and a wealth of funny stories, archive footage and extracts from feature films, this documentary immerses us in a distinctive yet universal humorous tradition of which each section of the community has its own version. Jewish humour encompasses a dazzling range of genres: Ashkenazi humour, Spehardic humour, Israeli humour, New York humour, and so on. This documentary sets out to challenge our preconceptions and deepen our understanding of this unique cultural heritage without spoiling the joke by telling us the punchline in advance.
The Tramp and the Dictator
Documentary, Great Britain, 2002, 35mm, 58 minutes
Director: Kevin Brownlow, Michael Kloft
Language: English
Cast: Budd Schulberg, Al Hirschfeld, Sidney Lumet, Ray Bradbury
Charlie Chaplin and Adolf Hitler had a number of things in common besides similar moustaches. Both were born in April 1889, both suffered difficult childhoods, and both aspired to the life of an artist: Chaplin as an actor, Hitler as a painter. Kevin Brownlow and Michael Kloft's remarkable, comprehensive documentary finds the many ironies in the two men's lives while advancing a new analysis of The Great Dictator using recently discovered behind-the-scenes footage and interviews with Chaplin's son Sydney.
Trumpet in the Wadi
Drama, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 97 minutes
Director: Lina and Slava Chaplin
Language: Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles
Cast: Alexander Senderovich, Khawlah Hag-Debsy, Raeda Adon, Salwa Nakkara-Hadad, Itzhak (babi) Neeman, Imad Gabarin
Based on the novel by Sami Michael, a seemingly impossible love story between two outsiders in Israeli society: Huda, a Christian Arab who lives in Haifa and works at an Israeli-owned travel agency, and her upstairs neighbour Alex, a new Jewish immigrant from Russia. Seeing each other every day is unavoidable and there's something magical about Alex's trumpet playing that attracts Huda to him. But their family's disapproval and the complicated political and cultural situation in Israel threatens to force them apart. Best film at the 2001 Haifa Film Festival. Best drama from the 2001 Israeli Motion Picture Academy. First prize at the Israeli Film Festival.
Unfair Competition
Drama, Italy, 2001, 35mm, 105 minutes
Director: Ettore Scola
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Cast: Diego Abatanuono, Sergio Castellitto, Gerard Depardieu, Walter Dragonetti, Simone Ascani, Augusto Fornari, Jean-Claude Brialy, and Anita Zagaria
Two families -- one Catholic, one Jewish -- live next door to one another over their respective shops. Umberto is a custom tailor with high-end clients. Leone, his Jewish neighbour, has a ready-to-wear haberdashery. The two businessmen are constantly at each other's throats, yet their families' maintain friendly relationships. Umberto's young son Pietrucco -- who narrates -- is a best friend of Leone's son Lele. Umberto's bookish son Paolo and Leone's beautiful daughter Susana are in love. But, things become even more complicated when Mussolini enacts the racial laws of 1938. Umberto and brother-in-law Angelo resolve to stand together with their Jewish neighbours and set out to prove that in union there is strength. A light, bittersweet comedy set in a quaint neighbourhood of Rome, home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. Ettore Scola is a celebrated Italian filmmaker (six-time recipient of the Italian critics' award for Best Picture), and has been nominated twice for an Academy Award (The Family, 1977 and A Special Day, 1987). Jerusalem International Film Festival, Mayor's Prize for Best Film, 2001.
Walking on a Thin Rope
Canadian Premiere
Drama, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 29 minutes
Director: Tomer Aviram
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
A drama without words set before the background of a bizarre, gloomy world. A modern silent film about the icy coldness of a lonely relationship between two people.
Welcome to the Waks Family
North American Premiere
Documentary, Australia, 2002, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Barbara Chobocky
Language: English
With seventeen children to she same two parents, it's one of the largest families in Australia. The family follows an orthodox form of Judaism. School, work, synagogue, and socialising all take place within a tight-knit Jewish community. Together, Zephaniah and Haya have worked hard to raise their children within the strict tenets of their faith; pop music, movies, and novels are not allowed and boys and girls don't mix except within the family. Zephaniah actually grew up as Stephen on Sydney's north shore, on a diet of surfing, parties, girls, and rock 'n' roll. A spiritual quest led him to the Lubavitch branch of Judaism and to New York, where his marriage to Haya was arranged through a matchmaker. Haya was born in Israel to Yemeni parents and her childhood was steeped in one of the more conservative branches of the Jewish faith. This fascinating documentary follows the family over five years, from the marriage of the eldest daughter at 21, to just a few moments after her youngest daughter is born.
Yossi and Jagger
Drama, Israel, 2002, 35mm, 65 minutes
Director: Eytan Fox
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Yehuda Levi, Ohad Knoller, Assi Cohen, Aia Steinovits-Koren
Based on a true story, the tale of a love affair between two young male Israeli officers stationed at a remote army base on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Men and women their age should be dancing, studying, loving; instead, mandatory military service and the region's complicated politics makes them soldiers, ready to kill or be killed. A poignant portrait of young people trying to survive in an impossible world.
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