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2007 VIJFF Festival Films
Save these Dates
March 22nd - April 1st
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Festival Opening Film
♥ Sweet Mud - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Germany DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 93 minutes
DIRECTOR: Dror Shaul
DESCRIPTION:
It's 1974 and Dvir (Tomer Steinof), just about to turn twelve and entering his Bar Mitzvah year, lives on a Kibbutz in Israel with his mother and older brother. His father died some years earlier, but no one will tell Dvir anything other than that it was an accident. Dvir's mother, Miri (Ronet Yudkevitz) is fragile and mentally unstable, and Dvir does his best to look out for her during the limited time each day he's allowed to spend with her. Sweet Mud is, on the surface, a very simple story of a son's relationship with his fragile mother, but there are so many subtle threads woven into the fabric of the story that the end result is a richly complex tapestry of culture, idealism, love and freedom. The acting, especially from Yudkevitz, who portrays Miri as both tragic and dignified, and Steinof, in a truly impressive debut performance, carries the film, and the sweeping cinematography of the kibbutz and the surrounding countryside is so breathtaking you'll swear you're soaking in Eden incarnate. It made me wish more American independent films -- especially those with teen protagonists - would do what this film does so well: take a simple idea, don't overdo it, and execute it to perfection. - Sundance Review by Kim Voynar
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♥ Body and Soul - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 1947
RUN TIME: 104 minutes
DIRECTOR: Robert Rossen
FORMAT: DVD
DISTRIBUTOR: Wild Side Video
CAST: John Garfield, Lili Palmer, Hazel Brooks, Anne Revere, William Conrad, Joseph Pevney, Lloyd Goff, Canada Lee
DESCRIPTION:
This classic black and white drama of crooked gamblers using a rags-to-riches boxing champion to make money clearly influenced later films like Rocky and Raging Bull. Charley Davis (John Garfield) wins an amateur boxing match and is taken on by promoter Quinn. Garfield is stunning as the kid from New York who wants a shot at the title. Charley's mother (Anne Revere) doesn't want him to fight, but when Charley's father is accidentally killed, Charley sets up a fight for money. His career blooms as he wins fight after fight, but soon an unethical promoter named Roberts (Lloyd Gough) begins to show an interest in Charley, and Charley finds himself faced with increasingly difficult choices. His eternal fiancee (Lilli Palmer), his best pal Shorty (Joseph Pevney) and washed-up ex-champ Ben (Canada Lee, an underappreciated African-American actor) all would rather see Charlie live in obscurity and poverty rather than sell his soul for money. Director, writer and producer Robert Rossen’s film received Oscar nominations for actor (John Garfield) and screenplay (Abraham Polonsky), and won the Oscar for editing (Francis D. Lyon and Robert Parrish). John Garfield died of a heart attack at the age of 39 in 1952 due, in part, to the McCarthey blacklist. Garfield's other heralded film roles were in The Postman Always Rings Twice, Force of Evil and Gentleman's Agreement, with Anne Revere in a supporting role. “A morality tale that depicts professional boxing as a hopelessly fixed sport, Body and Soul asks the question: What standards will you sacrifice to achieve fame and fortune? Would you take a dive for a payoff? Accept gratuities from a gangster? Cut off your manager if he's in the way? Drop your loyal fiancee for a shallow grifter?” filmsgraded.com Brian Koller
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♥ Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
GENRE: Comedy COUNTRY: USA
DATE: 2006 RUN TIME: 84 minutes
DIRECTOR: Larry Charles
DISTRIBUTOR: 20th Century Fox
CAST: Sacha Baron Cohen, Pamela Anderson, Azamat Bagatov: Ken Davitian
DESCRIPTION:
British comic actor Sacha Baron Cohen co-writes and stars in the most successful comedy of 2006, if not the decade. The film has attracted huge audiences as well as favourable reviews and has won many awards including numerous film critic awards for best actor and an Oscar nomination for best screenplay. Cohen has created a new iconic figure in Borat Sagdiyev, a Kazakh journalist who travels to New York with his extremely obese producer, Azamat (Ken Davitian), to explore the culture and make a documentary. With his mangled English and an endless barrage of shockingly offensive opinions about gypsies, Jews, women, minorities and "retards," Borat manages to outrage and leave audiences screaming with laughter.
Most scenes in the film were unscripted and many of the protagonists are not actors. As with Ali G, Cohen’s previous immensely popular persona, Borat interviews or interacts with unsuspecting people, asking them provocative questions that either shock or embarrass them…or prompt them to reveal their own prejudices. Cohen's great talent lies in his improvisation skills and ability to stay in character and come up with funny lines in hostile conditions.
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♥ The Boy Inside - GENRE: Documentary
TITLE: The Boy Inside COUNTRY: Canada
DATE: 2006 RUN TIME: 47 minutes
DIRECTOR: Marianne Kaplan
FORMAT: DigiBeta
DISTRIBUTOR: MSK Productions Ltd. - Marianne Kaplan
DESCRIPTION:
Adam, twelve-years-old, has a form of autism called Asperger syndrome. Kaplan, throughout her battle to maintain Adam at school, believes her child is entitled to a productive life in the world, “He communicates. He's in the world. He goes to school." Adam’s condition is characterized by socially and emotionally inappropriate behavior. Adam faces many challenges in what is for him a harsh school environment where he is painfully aware of his isolation and lack of friends. Adam tries desperately to control his outbursts and make sense of bullies, girls and life in the real world. "I have no clue, really. Am I retarded? That's how kids make me feel. I don't like having Asperger's. I don't like being considered different." Award-winning filmmaker Marianne Kaplan turns the camera on her own family, creating a rare and intimate first-hand portrait of the impact an autistic child has on his family and how he copes with his final year in elementary school. The film reveals a family under the stress of grappling with Adam’s behaviour and shows the demands on each family member as he or she copes with the constant anxiety of raising their vibrant son and sibling. The result is a revealing and moving film about a turbulent year in the life of a caring family struggling with an increasingly common neurological disorder.
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♥ Chez Schwartz - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Canada DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 83 minutes
DIRECTOR: Gary Beitel
FORMAT: Beta SP
DISTRIBUTOR: Les Production du Boulevard
DESCRIPTION:
Chez Schwartz Charcuterie Hebraique de Montreal - Quebec’s language laws have turned this old-fashioned Jewish deli into a linguistic mouthful. But to seemingly millions of displaced Montrealers it's still known simply as Schwartz's. Exiled Montrealers will spend hours extolling the deli’s virtue, and there is only one, the smoked meat sandwich. As Frommers (the trusty travel guide) notes, “any empty seat is up for grabs. Few mind the inconvenience or proximity to strangers, for they are soon occupying themselves with plates described either as small (meaning large) or large (meaning humongous), heaped with slices of smoked meat, along with piles of rye bread. Most people also order sides of fries and one or two mammoth garlicky pickles. There is a handful of alternative edibles, but tofu and leafy green vegetables aren't included. Expect a wait.” But director Garry Beitel wants to show you that there's more to Schwartz's than a good lunch. Chez Schwartz takes us inside a year in the life of Schwartz’s Deli - the unique 75-year-old landmark on Montreal’s historic Main and into the lives of the staff – some who've walked the linoleum tiles for more than 30 years - and patrons who'll remember their first sandwich for a long time yet.. Filmed through changing seasons, from the quiet of early morning preparation to the frenetic bustle of packed lunch times and never-ending line-ups, to the more relaxed ambience late at night - Chez Schwartz is an evocative, cinematic portrait of a small, spunky deli known worldwide equally for its atmosphere and its smoked meat.
Movie Site - http://www.chezschwartzfilm.com/frames.html
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♥ Chutzpah, This is? - GENRE: Mocumentary
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 35 minutes
DIRECTOR: Rick Kent
FORMAT: Beta SPDISTRIBUTOR: Evolutionary Media Group
DESCRIPTION:
The world's first ever Jewish Hip-Hop Supergroup struggles to make the video which will save their record deal from falling through in this highly unorthodox, completely unkosher documentary musical. Starring Dr. Dreck as George Segal (as Dr. Dreck?), Master Tav, the student turned rapper; MC Meshugenah, the koo-koo Jew; and Jew Da, the Rastafarian Jewish Philosopher. Also featuring cameos by Gary Oldman, Debi Mazar, Def Leppard's Vivian Campbell and Sharon Osbourne. This short film captures Chutzpah's underdog battle to stake their claim to fame as one obstacle after another rises in their path. Will they live up to the potential of their now-legendary demo tapes? Will they overcome internal tensions and maternal issues? Will they find the elusive dancers and venue for the music video their career hinges on? Not without a whole lot of chutzpah, and luckily these Hebrew homies got it. Imdb.com, Scott Hamilton "I first met Master Tav about 12 years ago so I've been listening to the sounds, the rhymes for about 12 years. I like rap, all kinds of music, the Beatles to Mozart to 50 Cent to Eminem to these guys. Go see these guys. They're amazing. They're brilliant. He's (Tav) a genius. A lot of people don't know this, but my real name is Harry Goldman. When I went into showbiz, it was easy. All I did was move the 'G' and dropped the 'R' . . .Gary Oldman. There you go. Famous Jew and there's been a few of them. Yo check these guys out. They're the bomb. They're Down. Chutzpah. Check 'em out! Okay, so this from me to you and up yours as well." Gary Oldman (actor)
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♥ Dark Night - GENRE: Documentary
TITLE: Dark Night COUNTRY: Israel
DATE: 2006 RUN TIME: 30 minutes
DIRECTOR: Leon Prudovsky
FORMAT: Beta SP
DISTRIBUTOR: GLM Film Productions
CAST: Eran Amichai, Jony Arbic, Hana Savyon, Pini Tavger, Helena Yaralova
DESCRIPTION:
Dark Night is a potent, thorough take on the current Israeli/ Palestinian quagmire.
Returning home from patrol duty on the West Bank, three Israeli soldiers in a jeep take a shortcut to their base and wind up hitting a landmine. Their jeep is blown up and one of the soldiers killed – Benish, the only passenger able to speak Arabic. The survivors, one of whom is a Russian immigrant and the other the wounded Shlomi, land up in a hostile Palestinian village and manage to force their way unnoticed into a home. The shocked inhabitants – a medic and his 7-months-pregnant, Russian-emigre wife – are quickly subdued. Within hours, however, the two former Russians bond. The impetus: a First World War song from their homeland titled "Dark Night," which is about a soldier surrounded by a silence that is only broken by gunfire. The pregnant woman begins to have contractions and Shlomi goes into shock from loss of blood. With both Hamas miltants and the Israeli military searching for the soldiers, and with the woman in need of an ambulance, the tension mounts. Will each person's innate humanity overcome his politics? Can a Palestinian trust an Israeli and vice versa?
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♥ Encounter Point - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 89 minutes
DIRECTOR: Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha
FORMAT: Beta SP
DISTRIBUTOR: Just Vision
CAST: Ali Abu Awwad, Sami Al Jundi, Rutie Atsmon, Robi Damelin, George Sa’adeh, Tzvika Shahak, Aziz Tanji, Shlomo Zagman
DESCRIPTION:
For the last four years, in the face of devastating violence and pain, thousands of ordinary people have been stepping forward to end the bloodshed, preserve human rights and promote reconciliation among Israelis and Palestinians. Yet even though Palestinians and Israelis who support peace outnumber the militants, their voices are continually drowned out by sensational, explosive headlines.
This compelling film avoids the archetypes that characterize much of the media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Featured are members of Bereaved Families' Forum, a group of Palestinian and Israeli families who are attempting to "solve the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians through dialogue and mutual understanding." Through intense debate both among themselves and within their wider communities, they seek a non-violent resolution to the decades-ling conflict through reconciliation and coexistance. Despite their being victims of the daily violence, these ordinary citizens share their grief and reject anger and revenge.
http://www.ahavat-olam.ca/
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♥ 51 Birch Street - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA/Germany DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 90 minutes
DIRECTOR: Doug Block
FORMAT: DigiBeta
DISTRIBUTOR: Dragoman Film Submarine Entertainment or Truly Indie
CAST: Mike Block, Mina Block, Carol "Kitty" Block, Ellen Block, Karen Block Engwall, Marjorie Silver, Natasha Saltzman, Rabbi Jonathan Blake, Samuel Osherson.
DESCRIPTION:
Both unexpectedly funny and heartbreaking, 51 Birch Street is the first-person account of Block’s unpredictable journey through a whirlwind of dramatic, life-changing events: the death of his mother, the uncovering of decades of family secrets, and the ensuing reconciliation with his father. What begins as his own intimate, autobiographical story, soon evolves into a broader meditation on the universal themes of love, marriage, fidelity and the mystery of family. As A.O. Scott of The New York Times declares, 51 Birch Street is “one of the most moving and fascinating documentaries I’ve seen this year.” The film spans 60 years and 3 generations, and weaves together hundreds of faded snapshots, 8mm home movies and two decades of verité footage. The result is a timeless tale of what can happen when our most fundamental assumptions about family are suddenly called into question.
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♥ Fired - GENRE: Documentary/Comedy
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2007
RUN TIME: 71 minutes
DIRECTOR: Chris Bradley and Kyle LaBrache
DISTRIBUTOR: Vagrant Films
CAST: Annabelle Gurwitch, Andy Borowitz , Ileana Douglas, Judy Gold, Richard Kind, Anne Meara, Bob Odenkirk, Robert Reich, Jeffrey Ross, Harry Shearer, Sarah Silverman, Ben Stein, Fisher Stevens, Paul F. Thompkin and Fred Willard
DESCRIPTION:
Getting fired by Woody Allen was just the beginning. If you spend any time at all in the workplace you’re going to get laid off, downsized, let go, outsourced, axed, terminated, canned, cancelled, dismissed . . . FIRED! When actress, writer and NPR commentator Annabelle Gurwitch was fired from a play by Woody Allen (who told her she sounded “retarded” and that the sound of her voice made him go deaf), she wondered how she would cope with being downsized by the cultural icon. Turning to friends in show business, she was assured she was not alone. Everyone she knew, from her rabbi to her gynaecologist, had their own account of getting the boot. This set her off on a journey to answer the question: Was being fired going to be the best thing or worst thing that had happened in her working life?
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♥ Fury at the End of the World - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Netherlands DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 92 minutes
DIRECTOR: Guido Peters
FORMAT: 35mm
DISTRIBUTOR: United International
CAST: Maarten Heijmans, Cees Geel, Frank Lammers, Bart de Vries, Reinout Bussemaker, Esther Waij, Kim Pieters, Miryanna van Reeden, Hugo Haenen
DESCRIPTION:
It is 1940 and Holland is under Nazi occupation. Three Jewish families seek to flee Rotterdam by boat for safety in England. Skipper Joost Vroom (Cees Geel, who won best actor for Simon at the Tribeca Film Festival) takes refugees (mainly Jews) on his boat to safe haven in England. However, the boat is attacked. While the families (including Alexander) and Vroom survive, the escape fails and the boat and their money is lost. They return to Holland, where Vroom becomes a police officer under the Nazi occupation. Alex is placed with the Goudvyls, who run a second-hand goods business that profits from the persecution of Jews by cheaply buying goods from Jews who have to flee the country. The book and film begin during the Second World War with Holland under Nazi occupation and both end around 1960. A long-awaited screen adaptation of Maarten 't Hart’s hugely successful novel of the same name, the film is the coming-of-age story of Alex.
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♥ A General's Story - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2005 RUN TIME: 50 minutes
DIRECTOR: David Habler FORMAT: DVD DISTRIBUTOR: Go2Films
DESCRIPTION:
Michael Levi wakes up and marches out for his daily routine dressed up as a lieutenant-general. In reality Levi delivers for a flower-shop. He lives a fantasy military life and is the only civilian in Israel who can dress as an army officer following a court decision. Somewhere he has lost his own identity. Following Levi’s routine we discover the story of a man who went through a complex absorption process as a Moroccan immigrant, grew up in a conflict zone on Israel’s northern border and has experienced a traumatic terror attack. While Levi lives in an imaginary world, he has a family, and when his son’s barmitzvah comes up, he becomes a sober, protective and loving father…until a terror attack hits again. Exactly how do fatherhood, manhood and loss of identity in a militaristic and power-driven society that is constantly under threat co-exist?
Producer Duki Dror is an acclaimed award-winning documentary filmmaker. Dror has made films that deal, in various ways, with issues of identity - cultural, political and ethnic expressions of individuals. In the last 2 years, Dror has initiated projects with first-time filmmakers from Israel’s periphery. This is a first documentary from director David Habler.
Ki
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♥ A Green Chariot - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 48 minutes
DIRECTOR: Gilad Goldschmidt
FORMAT: DVD
DISTRIBUTOR: Go2Films
CAST: Vitaly Friedland, Daniela Wircer, Pavel Tsitrinel, Lucy Dubnichek
DESCRIPTION:
A thoughtful and provocative tale about a 22-year-old Russian immigrant named Sasha. His greatest wish is to become an Israeli. He has left his previously secular life and chosen the Orthodox path in Israel. He changes his name to Yair, speaks only Hebrew and has completely cut himself off from his Russian past, including his father and Russian friends. Now he is about to marry his Israeli girlfriend. He has completely re-invented his life until he gets a package from his aunt in the Ukraine. An heirloom in the package launches him on an illuminating journey to uncover long hidden family secrets. The contents challenge everything he knows about himself, forcing him to question his religious beliefs, the person he has tried to become, and learn more about the Russian identity he has struggled to suppress. The revelation forces him to journey back to the Russian identity he has fought to suppress. At the end of his personal journey, will Sasha understand who he truly is, what he wants from life, and his place in the new world he is creating for himself? The filmed received a Special Jury Prize from the Religion Today Film Festival in Trento, Italy.
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♥ Glimpses of Heaven - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Canada DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 67 minutes
DIRECTOR: Michael Oved Dayan
DESCRIPTION:
Michael Oved Dayan’s debut film is a breakthrough work that exposes the indomitable power of the human spirit when moved by courage and compassion. In an intimate weaving of three profoundly personal journeys, unconscious gorges of pain-filled childhoods are opened to uncover sparks of creativity. The film reveals that openness to the mystery of living enables the miraculous to take form. Glimpses of Heaven unites nature, spirituality, creativity and imagination in a life-affirming symphony. As a small child, Peter Gary lay helpless while his mother took the brunt of Nazi machine gunfire meant for both of them. Left to die in a desolate forest with only a handful of other survivors, Gary narrowly escaped his own extermination on a frigid Christmas Eve in 1941. During the Japanese invasion of China, Wayne Ngan fled to Canada with his mother at the age of 13. Unable to speak the language of his new land, and exposed to snow for the first time, Ngan was handed off to alcoholic grandparents who mirrored the environment's icy welcome. George Littlechild, a Cree, was separated from his family as a baby simply because the Canadian government determined that indigenous people were incapable of providing for themselves. As a result, Littlechild's youth is marked by painful memories of brutal physical and mental abuse, perpetrated by the very white foster families that were assigned to care for him. Out of the destructive pyre of their youths, each of these survivors emerged victoriously to create beauty and harmony in the present. Starkly shot and told directly from the source, Glimpses of Heaven is a testament to the resiliency and optimism of the human spirit. - Christopher Nevin Johnston
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♥ Going Through Splat: The Life and Work of Stewart Stern
GENRE: Documentary COUNTRY: USA
DATE: 2005 RUN TIME: 104 minutes
DIRECTOR: Jon Steven Ward
FORMAT: DigiBeta
DISTRIBUTOR: Jon Steven Ward
CAST: Paul Newman, Dennis Hopper, Sally Field, Robert Wagner, Eva Marie Saint, Gil Cates, Delbert Mann.
DESCRIPTION:
Stewart Stern wrote scripts that raged with social importance. The stories were often groundbreaking and always ripe with an emotional honesty reflective of his struggles, not the commercial fare typified by the studio system. They were recognized by many to be some of the most relevant films produced during his era. Stern had one of the most prolific writing careers in Hollywood, scripting films including Rebel Without a Cause, The Ugly American and Rachel, Rachel. Yet after decades of escalating self-imposed expectations, Stewart chose to stop screenwriting the day after he accepted his Emmy for Sybil. He left Hollywood for the Pacific Northwest and for the following thirty years he didn’t write another script. Jon Ward set out to make a debut documentary about the life and career of Stewart Stern – the man and the writer – who exposed his soul through words on a page in an effort to find inner peace and to make sense of the world. Ward notes at the end of the film that he started out looking to make a film about why Stern stopped writing, but instead realized why Stern wrote in the first place was a more interesting story. Ward allows the 82-year-old Stern to speak for himself and also uses Stern's written words to explain the man through excerpts from his films. Finally there are candid interviews with Stern's large circle of colleagues and friends who testify to Stern’s talent. Through its study of a screenwriter, Splat exposes the greed, ambition and ruthlessness of life in Hollywood that coexists alongside the talent and loyalty. “The film is in part an indictment of Hollywood, a place where credits are stolen and friendships ruptured on the twin alters of greed and fame. This film is partly an investigation into the mysteries of the creative process, but mostly it is the personal journey of one remarkably sensitive and principled man, who went through splat and lived to tell about it.” - Vancouver International Film Festival. “Whatever road you're on, I wish you the best. Just know that you're going to go through splat again and again. I wish you courage, I wish you to make a contribution to those poor, sick, tired, needy on this planet.” Stewart Stern
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♥ Goldfaden’s Legacy: The Origins of Yiddish Theatre
GENRE: Documentary TITLE: COUNTRY: USA
DATE: 2004 RUN TIME: 58 minutes
DIRECTOR: Radu Gabrea
CAST: Theodore Bikel, Michael Tilson Thomas (grandson of Boris Thomashefsky), Ellen Adler, Stella Adler, Sheila Fox, Theresa Tova, Barbara Streisand, Bea Arthur, Bette Midler, Jackie Mason, Mel Brooks, Carl Reiner, Harvey Corman, Cloris Leachman, Jerry Lewis, Alan Arkin, Dustin Hoffman, Charles Grodin, Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, George Segal, Jerry Seinfeld, Woody Allen, Bea Arthur, Bette Midler, Ben Stiller, Elaine May, Steven Spielberg, Billy Crystal, Steven Sondheim
DESCRIPTION:
Goldfaden’s Legacy is a musical romp celebrating the songs, stars and stories of Yiddish Theatre. From the wine cellars of Romania to Tin Pan Alley and the Broadway stage, Goldfaden's Legacy is a celebration of the music of Yiddish Theatre, its role in the Jewish-American experience and its amazing influence on American popular culture. Like the Yiddish Theatre it celebrates, the film is spirited, colorful, vibrant and fun! Our guide on this musical journey is Zalmen Mlotek, the Artistic Director of The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, the oldest venue for Yiddish theatre in the world, founded in 1915. Mlotek, a dynamic performer and world renowned expert on Yiddish folk and theatre music, weaves segments of his one-man show with archival photos, film clips, recordings, interviews and examines the impact of Yiddish theatre on contemporary stars such as Billy Crystal, Steven Sondheim, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Mel Brooks, Jerry lewis, Woody Allan, Ben Stiller, Jackie Mason and Carl Reiner.
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♥ Hot House - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 90 minutes
DIRECTOR: Shimon Dotan
FORMAT: DVD
DISTRIBUTOR: Alma Films
DESCRIPTION:
At least 10,000 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails today. For most Israelis they are assassins and criminals. For most Palestinians they are heroes and freedom-fighters. Director Shimon Dotan explores the evolution of the Palestinian prisoners into a political force and their impact on Palestinian politics in the community. The film culminates in the historic elections to the Palestinian Parliament on January 20, 2006, which brought to power the militant Islamic organization Hamas. As with those imprisoned on Robben Island, South Africa, the Israeli prisons offer a space for intense debate and the development of political strategies as well as educational advance through study with such higher institutions as the Hebrew University. The film, by renowned Israeli director Shimon Dotan, gives us a portrait of the prison leadership that complicates the prevailing discourse. The prisoners are presented as intellectuals, studying at the Hebrew University via correspondence and immersed in the details of the conflict through Israeli TV and newspapers. Some are unrepentant about their participation in suicide bombings; others are clearly committed to negotiation and compromise. The Hot House tells the stories of Hasan Yusuf, Hamas leader in the West Bank, who was recently elected to Parliament from his prison cell; Abu Naji, Fatah leader in jail, imprisoned for more than 24 years; Ahlam Tamimni, Hamas leader of the female prisoners, sentenced to 16 life terms for planning and executing the attack on the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. The prison experience has become a Palestinian rite of passage, and the prisons are in fact nationalist academies – seen by Palestinians as their Robben Island. Important political initiatives originate from the prisons, and prisoners are consulted and canvassed by outside political leaders. The film raises questions about the impact of this incubator-culture on both Israeli and Palestinian society. Avi Lewis noted: “I've been struck by how the issue of Palestinian leadership in Israeli jails has been overlooked in the Canadian conversation. After all, the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah and one by Hamas in the run-up to the war in Lebanon were intended as part of a long-standing ritual of prisoner exchanges. Prisoners are at the heart of the current conflict.”
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♥ The Journey of Vaan Nguen - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Israel/Vietnam DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 84 minutes
DIRECTOR: Duki Dror
FORMAT: DVD, Beta DISTRIBUTOR: Go2Films
CAST: Vaan Nguyen, Hoiami Mguyen
DESCRIPTION:
Vaan Nguyen has grown up in Israel, speaking Hebrew and living as an Israeli – and yet she is alienated from Israeli society and resents being treated as a cultural curiosity. The notion of home has always eluded Vaan Nguyen. As the daughter of Vietnamese refugees in Israel, she's alienated in the country of her birth, where she is forced to explain and justify her existence to a society that rejects her as much as it tries to assimilate her. When the opportunity arises for her to travel back to Vietnam with her father in an attempt to reclaim their confiscated lands, Vaan jumps at the chance. She bids a less-than-fond farewell and sets off hoping to find refuge in the country of her ancestors. Vaan's fantasies of finding a home collide with the discomforting reality that nothing might grant her reparation for her sense of loss and displacement. In one of the best and most powerful documentary films created in Israel in recent years, Duki Dror reveals the absurdities of Vaan Nguyen’s life as an Israeli-born Vietnamese. Her father was one of the 200 boat-people who fled Vietnam after the fall of Saigon in 1975 and settled in Israel. Narrated through intimate family scenes as well as compelling archival footage that documents the Israeli government's condescending education of Vietnamese refugees, Journey of Vaan Nguyen articulates how even despite the interconnectedness of the world, neither land nor national, racial or ethnic affiliations can provide us the sense of belonging that we seek from them. Journey Of Vaan Nguyen forces us to reckon with the impossibility of ever discovering home
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♥ Just and Ordinary Jew - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Germany DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 89
DIRECTOR: Oliver Hirschbiegel
FORMAT: 35 mil DISTRIBUTOR: Traumfabrik
CAST: Ben Becker, Siegfried W. Kernen, Samuel Finzi
DESCRIPTION:
While award-winning director Oliver Hirschbiegel’s smash hit, Downfall, recounted Hitler’s last day’s in Berlin and sparked an extensive debate in Germany over the portrayal of Nazi leaders, Hirschbiegel now turns his focus on contemporary German society and it troubled relationship to its Jewish citizens. His stunning film explores the question: Can life ever again be ordinary for a Jew in Germany? Based on a book by Swiss author Charles Lewinsky, it addresses the thorny issue of what it means to be Jewish in contemporary Germany. Emanuel Goldfarb, a German-Jewish journalist (Ben Becker of The Comedian Harmonists and Gloomy Sunday), receives a polite letter asking him to speak at a school about his daily life as a "Jewish fellow citizen" to a group of German schoolchildren. Goldfarb can’t imagine what would be of interest to kids regarding his very ordinary life and declines the invitation. His attempt to write his letter of refusal develops into a monumental settling of accounts in which he starkly confronts Germany's dark past and his German-Jewish identity. Goldfarb enters into an amazingly intense monologue on the post-1945 German-Jewish relationship. As he confronts his mask of an “ordinary” Jew, he recognizes that his life, along with his Jewish heritage, is very unordinary. Becker’s stage performance is powerful and thought-provoking.
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♥ Janem Janem - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Israel RUN TIME: 104 minutes
DIRECTOR: Haim Bouzaglo
DISTRIBUTOR: Dragoman Films
CAST: Danny Rytenberg, Avital Dicker, Dor Zweigenbom, Galina Auzerner, Reymond Amsallem, Amos Lavie
DESCRIPTION:
The film’s title is the Turkish name of a song sung by a homesick immigrant. Eldi (Danny Rytenberg), the unhappy 40-year-old history schoolteacher, is in a midlife crisis. He returns from long army reserve service in Jenin and refuses to go back to teaching. Traumatized by the death of his best friend on a mission, Eldi heeds the advice of his psychiatrist wife (Avital Dicker), who suggests that he get away for a while. Rather than getting on a plane, Eldi sets out on a journey in his own country. Disconnected and discontented, he “disappears” into his own city and discovers an unknown world in the middle of Tel Aviv – a world of Turkish and Romanian foreign workers exploited by shady Israelis who hire out labourers and control a group of prostitutes. Drawn to this marginal world of foreign workers, whose zest for life is only matched by their sense of solidarity, Eldi finds everything that was missing from his earlier existence. In Janem, Janem, the second of his projected trilogy, Haim Bouzaglo, an award-winning writer and director, has created a tender and humourous portrait of people caught in contemporary events who are Israeli only as a matter of geographic identification, their Jewishness neither discernible nor relevant. In doing so, he has freed his characters from their historical burden and enabled him to concentrate on their essential and international humanity.
Forty year old, Aldi, seems to have everything a man could want, a beautiful wife and a good job job working as a history teacher in Jeruselem. But something is wrong, he feels history is not just in books but happening all around him. As he dives headlong into the throes of a middle-life crisis, his wife suggests that he take time off and go abroad to Paris to sort things out. At the airport he changes his mind and without telling his wife, checks into a seedy Tel Aviv hotel, where the female reception clerk, who dreams of immigrating to the US, mistakes him for an American tourist - a misunderstanding that Alid exploits. Later, due to a mix-up in a public park where Palestinians gather in search of work, he is mistaken for a mute Palestinian worker from Gaza. He joins a crew of immigrant construction workers and enters an interesting strange world he hadn’t expected.
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♥ King of the Beggars -GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 98 Minutes
DIRECTOR: Uri Pastor
CAST: Shahar Sorek
DESCRIPTION: The film follows the adventures of Fishke from humble bathhouse attendant in late 16th century Russian shetetl life to leader of a fighting brigade of Jewish outcasts. This is the story of the rise and fall of a Jewish warrior leader and his inevitable struggle against both a divided Jewish community and the hostile masters of his coincidental “homeland”. Inside the small cemetery of the Jewish village of “Lodonia” by the Russian-Polish border in the late 16th century, two social outcasts are joined in matrimony under a moonlit sky. Fishke, a lame, orphaned bath attendant, weds an older orphaned woman who has come to the village just days before. The marriage, according to the villagers, will exorcise the spell of pogroms that has been haunting the village and its Jewish community. But the wedding night proves a disaster, as Fishke, a devoted scholar of Torah, learns the truth about his new wife, a renegade vagabond belonging to a group of Jewish beggars. She escapes through the dark night, and Fishke, albeit being forced into the marriage, follows her believing her to be his destined lawful wife in the eyes of his God. When he finally tracks her down, he is exposed to a world he did not know exist. The group of Jewish outcasts his wife fled to survives by way of the sword, victimizing their own people in the same way the Polish and Russian soldiers do. Fishke, still eager to keep his marital vow, joins them against his better judgment. Shortly after, appalled and aghast by their sinister actions, he decides to run away…which sets events into motion that no one could have guessed.
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♥ Lost in a Moment - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 50 min
DIRECTOR: Amit Russ and Yair Koyfman
DESCRIPTION:
After completing their army service, two Israeli friends take a trip to India. One of them, a former officer, becomes deeply involved with drugs. Along with his sober friend, their trip quickly turns into a psychotic journey. The story fictionalized in the movie is based on Yair Koyfman’s own life: tough military service in an Israeli combat unit, release from that service, a journey to the United States, doing drugs common among US youth and a fall into insanity. Is there redemption for those who fall so far and what does it look like? The directors wrote, produced and directed the film without any outside investment funds (and for only $85,000 Can.). It has been showing at the Tel Aviv Cinemateque for nearly a year. A crew of twelve flew to India to make it, most of them friends from Safir's Negev College which both directors attended. The cast includes the two famous young Israel actors, Itay Turgeman and Tomer Ben David.
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♥ One Slave, One Gun. From Auschwitz to Turin by Primo Levi
GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: UK Date: 2006
RUN TIME: 23 minutes
DIRECTOR: Richard Hoddinott
Primo Levi's book "The Truce" recounted the 10 month journey home the Italian writer and chemist made following liberation from Auschwitz in January 1945. This film follows the route by train and selects 10 key moments from the book to accompany each month of the journey. The extracts chosen describe a gradual awakening and renewal that Levi felt took place along side a growing awareness of the abundance of life about him. The readings are provided by residents of Turin; the variety of readers reflecting upon the arbitrary nature of selections as well as survival. While a dialogue between recollection and the lived experience will always remain unresolved a postscript of images in Turin considers this conflict.
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| One Slave One Gun |
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♥ Our Children - GENRE: Documentary dramatization
COUNTRY: Poland DATE: 1948
RUN TIME: 68 minutes
DIRECTOR: Natan Gross and Shaul Goskind
DESCRIPTION:
This semi-documentary film (and Poland’s last Yiddish feature) features the comedy duo Szymon Dzigan and Israel Shumacher who had recently returned from the Soviet Union, and Jewish children who had survived the Holocaust. Directed on location at the JDC-supported Helenowek Colony, an orphanage/school near Lodz, this film includes Dzigan and Shumacher's virtuoso turn as all the characters in Sholem Aleichem's Kasrilevke Brent (Kasrilevke is Burning), and an exchange of roles where they become the children's audience. Reversals continue during the performers' visit to the children's residence, as the children teach adults about the healing possibilities of music, dance and storytelling. "Our Children is not only among the first films about the Holocaust, it is also the first to critique its representation.” -J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds
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| Our Children 1948 |
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♥ Out of Faith - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 82 minutes
DIRECTOR: Lisa Leeman
DESCRIPTION: Out of Faith, a feature-length documentary, follows three generations of the Welbel family as they are pulled apart by interfaith marriage. Grandparents Leah and Lazer Welbel are Auschwitz survivors. When the film begins, Leah and her grandson Danny have not spoken in six years, because he married someone not Jewish. Then Leah's second grandchild, Cheryl, marries out of faith. Pressure mounts on Cheryl as people describe how interfaith marriage impacts the Jewish population and pressure mounts on Leah as her grandson's wife is about to have a baby. An unexpected event changes everything. We see the family as they struggle with complex and emotionally charged conflicts over intermarriage, familial duty, ethnic identity, and cultural continuity and survival. The film raises universal questions about how to honor the past and one's own 'tribe' while living in today's multicultural society.
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| Out of Faith |
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♥ Shameless the Art of Disability - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Canada DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 70 Minutes
DIRECTOR: Bonnie Sherr Klein
CAST: David Roche
DESCRIPTION: With “SHAMELESS: The Art of Disability” Bonnie Sherr Klein returns to filmmaking after a life-altering stroke in 1987. Art, activism and disability are the starting point for what unfolds as a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals, including Klein herself. “Award-winning director Klein (Not a Love Story, and Speaking Our Peace) has been a pioneer of women's cinema and an inspiration to a generation of filmmakers around the world. Always the activist, Klein turns the lens on the world of disability culture, and ultimately, the transformative power of art. From Klein’s unique perspective as an outsider who suddenly finds herself a part of disability culture, she brings the audience into her new world. Art, activism and disability are the starting point in what unfolds as a funny and intimate portrait of five surprising individuals. Watch humorist David Roche work to bring his one-man show, The Church of 80% Sincerity, to New York City. Writer, scholar and activist Catherine Frazee pushes her limits with a full schedule of teaching and speaking engagements. Dancer, choreographer and impresario Geoff McMurchy organizes kickstART2, an international festival of disability art. Sculptor and writer Persimmon Blackbridge creates mixed-media portraits from each character’s “meaningful junk”. Contradicting common preconceptions and stereotypes, Klein’s film dispels the myth of disability as tragedy, and celebrates the rich wholeness of these diverse and full lives. Witty and edgy, Shameless: The ART of Disability reveals each artist in their element as they speak candidly about their art, relationships, joys and fears. “ – disthis.org
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♥ Sisai - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: Israel DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 56 minutes
DIRECTOR: David Gavro
DESCRIPTION: “In this emotional, eye-opening and unforgettable documentary, Ethiopian-Israeli director David Gavro introduces us to his younger brother Sisai and invites us on an extraordinary journey to find the birth father that Sisai has never known.
Ethiopian Jews now living in Israel, David Gavro and his family have adopted Sisai, a 23-year-old soccer-playing charmer and David’s younger brother. When David breaks the news that he has located Sisai’s biological father in Ethiopia, the two brothers decide to revisit the country that long ago had been their home.
Winner of the first prize for documentary at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, Sisai is a touching portrait of immigrants caught between two worlds. At family meals, trips to the synagogue and interactions with social agencies, we feel the poignancy of an Ethiopian family trying to assimilate into an Israeli society in which they are welcome yet never fully integrated. Once in Ethiopia, they cannot escape the feeling of being privileged outsiders in a desperately poor country and must come face-to-face with the choices their parents have made in order to give them a better life.” – SFJFF
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♥ Steel Toes - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: Canada DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 90 minutes
DIRECTOR: Mark Adam and David Gow
CAST: David Strathairn as Danny Dunckelman
DESCRIPTION:
“Powerful performances mark this intense drama about a neo-Nazi skinhead on trial in Montreal for a racially motivated murder and the Jewish lawyer who reluctantly agrees to defend him. Oscar-nominee David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) plays Danny Dunkelman, the court-appointed attorney assigned the case of Mike Downey (Andrew Walker). Despite his thorough indoctrination of hatred, Mike is intelligent and articulate. Danny, though repulsed by the unrepentant, racist philosophy of his client, is nevertheless compelled to uphold his belief in justice and the essential virtues of Judaism and compassion. As a bond of mutual respect deepens, Danny faces a crisis of conscience that threatens to become an obsession and destroy his life.” – Atlanta Jewish Film Festival …..Steel Toes is based on co-director David Gow’s highly successful stage play Cherry Docs.
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| Steel Toes |
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♥ Steal This Movie - GENRE: Drama
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2000
RUN TIME: 107 minutes
DIRECTOR: Robert Greenwald
DESCRIPTION:
Five years after Yippie founder Abbie Hoffman goes underground to avoid a drug-related prison sentence, he contacts a reporter to get out the story of the FBI's covert spying, harassment and inciting of violence they then blame on the Left. The skeptical reporter interview's Anita, Hoffman's wife, a single mom on welfare in New York City; Hoffman's attorney, Gerry Lefcourt; and others. As they talk, we see Hoffman's career in flashbacks, from early civil rights organizing through the trial of the Chicago Eight. While underground, as mental illness takes its toll, he meets Johanna Lawrenson, and an odd family develops: Abbie, Anita, their son, and Johanna. Will vindication ever arrive?
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| Steal This Movie |
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♥ The Rape of Europa - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 117 minutes
DIRECTOR: Richard Berge, Bonni Cohen, Nicole Newnham
DESCRIPTION:
The Rape of Europa is a documentary based on the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning history by Lynn H. Nicholas. The film tells the epic story of the systematic theft, deliberate destruction, and miraculous survival of Europe's art treasures during the Third Reich and Second World War. Filled with startling historical images and silent heroes, the film interweaves the history of Nazi art looting with the stories of contemporary restitution cases. The film also tells the dramatic story of the unprecedented heroic efforts of the U.S. Monuments Men who were sent to Europe to safeguard and return displaced art at the end of the war.
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| The Rape of Europa |
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♥ Sonia - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA
RUN TIME: 96 minutes
DIRECTOR: Lucy Kostelanetz
DESCRIPTION:
Lucy Kostelanetz's first feature, Sonia, burrows into personal family genealogy only to surface in the vortex of a vast historical movement, in this case not the Holocaust but the Russian Revolution. Kostelantez's great-aunt, Sonia Dymshitz-Tolstaya, was an impassioned painter and revolutionary avant-gardist whose tumultuous private and professional life offers a unique window on the Russian art scene during the early revolutionary days. Excerpts from Sonia's vividly penned memoirs are vibrant and revelatory. Through old photographs and archival clips, Lucy successfully captures the promiscuous intermingling of the personal, artistic and political in Sonia's fully engaged bohemian lifestyle. Breaking away from her affluent Jewish St. Petersburg family, Sonia forged a radically different destiny than the one envisioned for her. She was an integral part of the revolutionary art movement from as early as 1905, both through her various marriages/liaisons with leading activists, artists and writers and through her own considerable achievements as a painter and organizer. Sonia's memoirs express the euphoria and heady liberation of a collective creative effort that sought to change the world.
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| Sonia |
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♥ Stand Up - GENRE: Romantic comedy
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2005
RUN TIME: 101 minutes
DIRECTOR: Michael Rainin
DESCRIPTION:
Avi Rosen knows what’s really funny: the laughs come with dollar signs in Hollywood. Bidding farewell to his crotchety grandmother, who wishes he’d find a nice Jewish girl and open a pharmacy, Avi leaves the Big Apple and heads West to Tinseltown. Shacking up with an old comic buddy from the East Coast, Avi is surprised to find his once caustic friend an incense-sniffing yoga nut seemingly let loose in LALA land. What seems the perfect set up soon falls flat, and the savvy New Yorker suddenly finds the stage a very lonely place. When his broken hearted lover flees to New York, Avi must choose between the glitter of Hollywood and the gold of love. "A knowing glimpse behind the scenes of the stand-up comedy scene in L.A. that benefits from a fresh-faced cast of unknowns." – Steve Chagollan, VARIETY
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| Stand Up |
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♥ So Long Are You Young: Samuel Ullman's Poem and Passion
GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2006
RUN TIME: 82 minutes
DIRECTOR: Judith Schaefer
DESCRIPTION:
“The astonishing power of words is the subject of this engaging documentary. Beginning with the line “Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind,” the poem “Youth” was written in 1917 by 77-year-old Samuel Ullman, a Jewish immigrant to the US. Twenty years after its author's death “Youth” came into the possession of General Douglas MacArthur, whose framed display of it deeply impressed Japanese visitors to MacArthur's Tokyo office at the close of World War II. Subsequently spread across that then-broken nation, the poem inspired a generation thirsty for hope. Prominent businessmen still cite its influence, and it is quoted by politicians and advice columnists alike. Layered with interviews, historical footage and photographs, and a fascinating timeline of Ullman's life and that of his poem, So Long Are You Young celebrates a little-known literary sensation.” — D. Quinones
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| So Long are You Young |
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♥ The John Garfield Story - GENRE: Documentary
COUNTRY: USA DATE: 2003
RUN TIME: 58 minutes
DIRECTOR: David Heeley
FORMAT: DVD
DISTRIBUTOR: Turner Classic Movies
DESCRIPTION:
The John Garfield Story is a documentary about the brief but lasting career of John Garfield (1913-52) who redefined the Hollywood anti-hero in films such as Out of the Fog (1941), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), Body and Soul (1947) and Force of Evil (1948). His difficult childhood in the rough neighbourhoods of New York City provided the perfect background for the tough-guy roles he would play on both stage and screen. John Garfield set the standard for naturalistic acting that blazed the trail for such future "method" types as Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro. Lovingly narrated by Garfield's actress daughter, Julie Garfield, the film details the early childhood of Julius Garfinkel in the mean streets of New York, his fascination with acting, his absorption into the influential Group Theatre, and his ultimate journey to Hollywood, where as John Garfield, he earned an Oscar nomination for his first starring feature film, Four Daughters.
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♥ The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America
GENRE: Documentary feature
TITLE: The Longing: The Forgotten Jews of South America
RUN TIME: 75 minutes
DIRECTOR: Gabriella Bohm
DESCRIPTION:
“The Longing” tells the story of a small group of South Americans whose ancestors were European Jews that were forced to convert to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition. Isolated in Catholic countries, rejected by local Jewish communities, they battle to become Jews regardless of the consequences. “The Longing”, set in Ecuador, tells the story of a small groups’ attempt to regain their birthright. On the Internet, they found an American rabbi committed to helping “lost Jews” reclaim their identities. The group includes three women who travel 36 hours one-way, by bus, from Colombia, and a couple from a small Ecuadorian town. The rabbi meets them in Guayaquil, where he has difficulty getting the local Jewish community’s support in facilitating their conversions. Ultimately, he convinces several local Jews to participate. The film also provides a rare glimpse into the conversion process, including the ritual mikva (submersion) and Beit Din (rabbinical court).
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♥ Waiting for Woody Allen - GENRE: Short
COUNTRY: USA | |
