2008 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival

Please note: Tickets go on sale Thursday, March 6th.

Sven, a German conscientious objector, is sent to the Polish city Oswiecim “Aushwitz” where he is due to complete his civil service abroad at the International Youth Meeting Center. Sven is assigned to look after Krzeminski, a former concentration camp prisoner. As time goes by Sven begins to discover both Aushwitz and Oswiecim, develops compassion for Krzeminiski and falls in love with a Polish woman. Director Robert Thalheim has said, “In And Along Come Tourists I have attempted to use a fictional story as a means of giving an idea of some of the conflicts and contradictions of present day Oswiecim and how difficult it is to deal with the past. The heart of the film...is a look at the effects of the past on the everyday life of the people who live there.”
Director: Robert Thalheim

SUN APRIL 6, 4:00 pm OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

FRI  APRIL 4, 4:30 pm OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

SAT MARCH 29, 8:30 pm FIFTH AVE

WED  APRIL 2, 9:40 pm FIFTH AVE

BYE-BYE LOVE
Narrative Feature, 2006
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew, with English subtitles,
Run Time: 83 min

Sophie, a video-artist, decides to dedicate her new project to the moment when love died. In order to cast her new work, she publishes an ad in the newspaper seeking 25 to 35 year-old women - divorcees and mothers. She chooses seven women from among all those who respond to her ad.  All of them are mothers who have separated from their children's fathers.  She then invites them to an elegant dinner, inspired by the Red Table of Sophie Calle, (a well-know French artist), where the women participate in a video performance in which the issue of the death of love and the disintegration of the nuclear family are explored. Terms such as happiness, loneliness, belonging and couple-life are used as seven heart-breaking personal stories unfold.
For the film, seven beautiful, strong, talented actresses, who had indeed surrendered their own dreams of preserving the family framework and had opted for a new life, were chosen. The blurred distinction between the authentic and the acted, the personal and the universal, is an important element in Bye -Bye Love arousing a sense of identification.
Director: Ayelet Dekel
Cast: Liat Glick, Avital Dicker, Shiri Heller, Eden Harel, Natali Atiya

WED APRIL 2, 5:30 pm FIFTH AVE

CHILDREN OF THE SUN 
Documentary, 2007
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Run Time: 70 min

Children of the first kibbutzim in Israel were born in the early 20th century to youthful parents, full of hope. They have been called "Children of the Sun," because they were considered children of the "Sun of Nations" Revolution in Israel. Born into a utopia, they were destined to become "new citizens" for the common good and a life of equality. Children of the Sun features rare footage shot at the kibbutzim between 1930 and 1970, and rare recordings and conversations with family and friends. Director Ran Tal weaves an amazing tapestry that is both a very personal and very public story -- a meta-narrative about the fascinating and founding myths of the Zionist movement in the Land of Israel.
Director: Ran Tal

MON MARCH 31, 1:00pm FIFTH AVE

CITIZEN LAMBERT: JOAN OF ARCHITECTURE
Documentary,  2006
Country:   Canada / France 
Language: English/ French with English subtitles
Run Time: 52 min 

A unique glimpse into the world of Phyllis Bronfman Lambert, renowned Canadian architect, urban activist, patron, and founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in Montreal. Citizen Lambert: Joan of Architecture presents a candid portrait of Phyllis Lambert, a member of the prominent Bronfman family, known for her aloofness and rigidity, a woman who has made a significant contribution to cultural heritage and architecture in Canada and abroad. In this vibrant portrait we see not only the public image, but also the private persona of a figure so often presented one-dimensionally in the press.
Director: Teri Wehn-Damisch

MON MARCH 31, 7:00 pm NRT  - BUY TICKETS>>

DEAR MR. WALDMAN / Michtavim Le America
Drama, 2006
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Run Time: 86 min

This touching story about the son of Holocaust survivors is written and directed by the son of survivors and set in Tel Aviv in the early 1960's. Ten year old Hilik  knows he and his brother's goal in life - to make his parents happy and compensate for the grief they both suffered in the Holocaust. The fragile equilibrium of the new life Rivka and Moishe have forged for themselves and their sons Hilik and Yonatan in the new state of Israel begins to waiver when Moishe convinces himself that his lost son, from his first marriage, didn't die in Auschwitz but somehow miraculously escaped to America to become President Kennedy's assistant. When Moishe writes a letter to Waldman in America, Hilik takes matters into his own hands.
Director: Hanan Peled

Official Selection: 2007 Palm Springs Film Festival, Israel Academy Award Best Actor, Official Selection: 2007 Munich Film Festival,
Official Selection: 2006 Jerusalem Film Festival.

SUN MARCH 30, 8:40 pm FIFTH AVE

THE FIRST BASKET
Documentary, 2007
Country: USA
Language: English
Run Time: 90 min

David Vyorst, the executive producer and creator of this documentary, a communications specialist living in Washington, D.C., has worked on two presidential campaigns and is a lifetime New York Knicks fan and a film enthusiast. This film narrated by Peter Riegert (Animal House, Local Hero and Crossing Delancy) tells the story of how Jewish inner-city youth were attracted to and succeeded in basketball from the 1920s to the 1950s and examines the sharp decline in Jewish players in professional and college basketball after 1950. The film is divided into four parts, "The 1946-47 New York Knickerbockers", "Basketball Meant Being American", "The Development of Professional Basketball" and "the 1950s to the 21st Century."
On November 1, 1946 at the inaugural came of the Basketball Association of America (BAA - to become the NBA in 1949) Ossie Schectman scored the opening basket for the New York Knickerbockers against the Toronto Huskies. Full of interesting information and rich archival footage this is a must see for all basketball and sports enthusiasts as well as all those interested in Jewish athletic achievement. 
Director: David Vyorst

WED APRIL 2, 3:30 pm, FIFTH AVE

FROM HELL TO PARADISE OR CHOPIN SAVED ME  / Von der Hölle ins Paradies oder Chopin hat mich gerettet
Documentary, 2006
Country: Germany
Language: German with English subtitles
Run Time: 73 min

This is the amazing and inspiring story of the renowned pianist Alice Sommers now 104 years old and living in London. However, before coming to London, Ms Sommers lived through the major events of the twentieth century. She was brought up in Prague, educated in German culture, lived and worked in Israel for 37 years before moving to London. She experienced and witnessed World War I, World War II, the European inflation, the Holocaust, Liberation, Zionism, Communism, and emigration.  Learn of the most significant events of the twentieth century through the images and words of this interesting artist.
Director: Michael Teutch

FRI, MARCH 28, 11:00 am FIFTH AVE

FROM SHTETL TO SWING
Documentary/Music 2005
Country: USA
Language: English
Run Time:  52 min

Between 1880 and 1924, 2.5 million Jews fled persecution in Russia and Eastern Europe, kissed the shtetl goodbye and migrated to America. Turning a fresh, playful eye to the cultural attitudes and musical styles that proliferated throughout this extraordinarily rich period, from Yiddish theatre to musical extravaganza, from klezmer to ragtime, from symphonic jazz to swing - all the way from the Bowery to Tin Pan Alley to Broadway to Hollywood - From Shetl to Swing recounts the ebullient, screaming-to-be-told story of a musical metamorphosis born in darkest Russia only to blaze across the sky of the Great White Way. 
Director: Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir

SUN MARCH 30, 1:00 pm FIFTH AVE

FRI MARCH 28, 4:30 pm FIFTH AVE

GERMAN LULLABY

Short Drama, 2008

Country: UK

Language; English

Run Time: 15 min

The German Lullaby was originally written as a stage play and shown in New York about 5 years ago. It is an intense piece about a female couple whose family history back in WW2 comes out and affects their relationship today. Both are American. (Molly) is Jewish, while Anna has German Ancestry

Director: Tess Malone

MON MARCH 31, 5:30 pm FIFTH AVE
TUES APRIL1, 12:00 noon FIFTH AVE

MON MARCH 31, 5:30 pm FIFTH AVE

HOLOCAUST TOURIST

Short Documentary, 2005

Country: UK

Language: English

Run Time: 10 min

A wry animated documentary about how Holocaust tourism distorts history. A whistle stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow’s kitsch Judaica. How is dark tourism changing history?

Director: Jes Benstock

FRI  MARCH 28, 11:00 am FIFTH AVE  

TUES APRIL 1, 3:30 pm FIFTH AVE

IN OUR OWN HANDS - The Hidden Story of the Jewish Brigade in World War II
Documentary, 1997
Country:  USA
Language:  English
Run Time: 85 min

It is the final weeks of World War II.  His Majesty's Jewish Brigade - the only all-Jewish fighting unit in the war - goes into combat against the hated Nazis...and comes away victorious.   For three years the Jews of Palestine had asked the British Government for permission to form a Jewish unit.  Finally, in 1944, Churchill overrode the objections of the War Office and within a year, the Brigade was seeing action against the Germans in Italy.  It is after the war, though, that the real story of the Brigade begins. Amidst the chaos of post-war Europe, and under the noses of the occupying Allied armies, the young Jewish soldiers mastermind one clandestine operation after the next: forming secret vengeance squads to assassinate Nazi officers in hiding...engineering the rescue and illegal movement of Holocaust survivors to Palestine.  Later, in 1948, Brigade veterans help organize and lead the fledgling Israel Defense Forces in their new country's War of Independence. From the trenches of Northern Italy to the refugee camps of war-torn Europe, In Our Own Hands unravels the thrilling tale of young Jewish soldiers who carried the weight of a people on their shoulders.
Director:  Chuck Olin

FRI MARCH 28, 2:30 pm FIFTH AVE

JEWISH LUCK
Silent - Yiddish Film, 1925
Country: Soviet Union
Language: Silent with Yiddish and English subtitles
Run Time: 88 min

This 1925 film directed by Alexis Granowsky was made in the Soviet Union at a time when different cultures were still tolerated in that country despite the racism that existed throughout Europe. This film revolves around Menachem Mendl, a daydreaming entrepreneur who specializes in doomed strike it rich schemes, who, through his perseverance changes from a schlemiel to a hero. This film based on Sholem Aleichem's stories was among the first Yiddish films to be released in America. The original intertitles in this silent film were written by the famed writer, Isaac Babel. Sure to appeal to those who loved Yiddischkeit and the history of film.
Director: Alexis Granowsky

WED  APRIL 2, 5:00 PM NRT - BUY TICKETS>>

KNOWLEDGE IS THE BEGINNING
Documentary 2006
Country: Germany
Language: English/Arabic/German/Hebrew with English subtitles
Run Time:  90 min

In the early 1990s, a chance meeting between Conductor and pianist, Daniel Barenboim, and the late Palestinian-born writer and Columbia University professor, Edward Said, resulted in a unique friendship that had both political and musical repercussions. Their meeting led to Barenboim's first concert in the West Bank and to the creation of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, which involved talented musicians between the ages of 14 and 25 from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia. Based on the notion that "music is the language of peace," Barenboim and Said brought the orchestra to perform in Weimar on the 250th anniversary of the birth of Goethe. Also participating in this bold experiment in 1999 was Yo-Yo Ma. Director Paul Smaczny has followed the orchestra, which has grown to 80 Arab and Israeli musicians, since its inception. The film, an unusual hybrid of a world-class concert movie and a documentary about artistic diplomacy, chronicles all five summer workshops in Weimar and Seville, Barenboim's visit to Ramallah and Jerusalem in May 2004, during which he received the prestigious Wolf Prize at the Knesset, as well as a celebrated concert in Geneva and highlights of the 2005 European Tour. The most moving and indelible scenes are of the students playing together. Said, who felt that the orchestra was one of the most important things he had done in his life, eloquently advocates for young Israelis and Arabs to gain greater mutual understanding, quietly stating," Ignorance is not a strategy for sustainable survival."
Director: Paul Smaczny

Winner: International Emmy Awards - Arts Programming

SUN APRIL 5, 2:15 pm OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

KZ
Documentary, 2005
Country: U.K.
Language: English and German with English subtitles
Run Time: 95 min

This powerful documentary examines Mauthausen, Austria as it's residents and visitors come to terms with it's dark past as, first, a men-only forced labor camp for political prisoners, homeless people, homosexuals and other undesirables and later part of the Jewish genocide as women and Jews were added to the mix. This film follows a uninterested high school class as they are introduced to the place and it's history by the dedicated and knowledgeable  guides employed at the Mauthausen Museum. Interviews with local Austrian residents as they retell their stories of the war years and reveal their attitudes fill out the film .
Director: Rex Bloomstein

Nominated: Grand Jury Award - Sundance

MON MARCH 31, 5:00 pm NRT  - BUY TICKETS>>

THE LAST SUSPECT
Crime Thriller, 2006
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Run Time: 81 min

"In this powerful police drama, Danny Breznitz ( played intensely by Smil Ben-Ari) is a detective in the Tel Aviv police. He is hospitalized following a near fatal car accident. His relationship with his mistress, Eva, early 30s, is falling apart, and his obsession with her is pushing her even further away. Breznitz is married to Ruthie, who loves him. Their marriage is childless. They live in the same apartment and try to keep together what's left of their relationship. After his recovery Breznitz is handed an insignificant murder case by his hostile superior. The Shabak ( Israeli FBI) arrests an Arab intellectual who admits to the murder, yet Breznitz doubts the man's guilt and continues to investigate, making a sweep of Israel's low life including a prostitute turned hairdresser, a pimp who poses as a born again Jew and a homosexual artist who is excommunicated by his parents. The investigation goes nowhere - until information arises - a clue that seems impossible to Breznitz leading him to solve the crime whether he likes it or not." Israel Film Festival. 
This film is  based on the novel, Breznitz,  by Haim Lapid.
Directors: Matti Harari, Arik Lubetzky
Cast: Smil Ben-Ari, Orel Timsit, Rothi Navon, Osnat Hchim

WED APRIL 2, 10.00 pm NRT - BUY TICKETS>>

LEAVING PARADISE: THE JEWS OF JAMAICA
Short Documentary, 2006
Country: USA
Language: English
Run Time: 13 min

Through a personal lens, the film explores the Jewish Community of Kingston, Jamaica, their little-known history and the vibrant and diverse characters who remain a part of the congregation today.
Director: Melanie Levy

SUN MARCH 30, 2:45 pm FIFTH AVE

LOVE AND DANCE / Sipur Hatzi-Russi
Drama, 2006
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew and Russian with English subtitles
Run Time: 90 min

Love & Dance is an irresistible, multi-layered coming-of-age film about a young boy caught in the clashing crossroads between his Russian-born mother and Israeli father. While strolling the halls of a community center, Chen stumbles upon a ballroom dance class for children and is instantly taken with a beautiful young Russian girl in the class. When infatuation leads him to take ballroom dancing lessons, he quickly learns to love to dance. With a little help from the cha cha and the tango he is able to bridge the culture gap of his fractured family.
Director: Eitan Anner
Guest Artist: Actress Evgenia Dodina

Nominated: Moscow International Film Festival

SAT MARCH 29, 10:30 pm FIFTH AVE

MAHJONG AND CHICKEN FEET
Documentary, 2008
Country: Canada
Language: English
Run Time: 47 min

A group of men in a variety store in Harbin, China candidly discuss a foreigner with a camera amongst them, assuming that she doesn't understand Chinese and forgetting that her camera is recording them all the while. Later in Kaifeng, miles to the south, the woman noses her camera into peoples homes, searching for traces of the city's thousand -year old Jewish settlement while her guide attempts to render her questions polite in translation. The director's own Russian Jewish family history in China at the beginning of the 20th century, a story of tiger hunters, poignant deaths and daring rescues, binds together this lively tale of Chinese Jewish encounters then and now.
Director: Jacqueline Levitin

FRI APRIL 4, 12:30 pm OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

MAKING TROUBLE
Documentary / Comedy, 2006
Country: USA
Language; English
Run Time: 85 min

Making Trouble spans more than a century of theatre, film and television history beginning with Molly Picon's earliest performances in silent films in 1903, through Fanny Brice's Ziegfield Follies shows, right up to Gilda Radner's astonishing work on Saturday Night Live. Our stars made an indelible impact on the entertainment world, their audiences and the times they lived in. They became important and lasting figures in our culture. Each of the stars brought something new and unique to the world through their talents, but all shared the gift- and the burden- of being funny, being Jewish, and being female.
Our hosts for Making Trouble are four of today's leading Jewish women comedians - Judy Gold, Jackie Hoffman, Cory Kahaney and Jessica Kirson - brought together at New York's famed Katz's Delicatessen to gab about these female comic pioneers and guide us through the chronicle of these amazing women.
Director: Rachel Talbot
Cast: Anne Beats, Fanny Brice, Tovah Feldshuh, Fyvush Finkel and more….

TUES APRIL 1, 5:00 pm NRT - BUY TICKETS>>

MAX MINSKY AND ME / Max Minsky und ich
Narrative / Comedy, 2007
Country: Germany
Language: German with English subtitles
Running Time: 94 min

Author Holly-Jane Rahlens based the screenplay for this coming-of-age story on her novel, Prince William, Maximillian Minsky and Me, which received the German Award for Young People's Literature in 2003. Nelly Sue Edelmeister is a skinny 13-year-old living in Berlin with her German Christian father and American Jewish mother. Though her mom pushes her to practice for her fast approaching Bat Mitzvah, Nelly is more fascinated by the mysteries of the cosmos than religion. When a school basketball championship offers her a chance to meet fellow astronomy fan and heartthrob Edouard, Prince of Luxembourg, Nelly turns to school basketball ace, Max Minsky, for help. Navigating her parents' unraveling marriage, boys, basketball and her Bat Mitzvah, the  teenaged Nelly tries to find her place in the world in this heartwarming family comedy from Germany.
Director: Anna Justice
Cast: Zoe Moore, Adriana Altaras,  Jan Josef Liefers, Emil Reinke

Winner: Cinekid Film Award
Winner: Audience Award - Sarejevo Film Festival

THURS APRIL 3, 7:00 pm FIFTH AVE

MY MEXICAN SHIVAH / Morirse Está En Hebreo
Comedy, 2006
Country: Mexico
Language: Spanish / Yiddish / Hebrew with  English subtitles 
Run Time: 102 min.

Set in Polanco, the Jewish quarter of Mexico City, this dramatic comedy shows how the death of a man results in the celebration of his life. The seven days of mourning, or shivah, of beloved Jewish-Mexican patriarch Moishe Tartovsky is the occasion for a colorful gathering of family, friends and lovers, capped off by a mariachi band singing "Hava Nagila." The odds are against Moishe from the beginning. Family dysfunction aside, Moishe´s friends are attending his funeral for their own motives. And to make matters worse, while performing his duties, a a member of the Chevra Kadisha is milking the family for all they're worth. Which angel will accompany Moishe's soul in its journey to the Almighty? If the shivah reveals anything, it's that Moishe´s family and friends loved him with all his flaws and mystery- and most of all his spirit. The film is based on a short story by Ilan Stavans, and produced by John Sayles and Maggie Renzi, with an original score by the Klezmatics. 
Director: Alejandro Springall
Cast: Blanca Guerra, Martha Roth, Sergio Kleiner, Guillermo Murray, Isaac Fischer

WED APRIL 2, 7:15 pm FIFTH AVE
THURS APRIL 3, 2:00 pm FIFTH AVE

NOODLE
Closing Gala Film and Party
Comedic Drama, 2007
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew / Mandarin w/ English subtitles
Runtime: 100 min

This touching comic drama centers around Miri, a twice-widowed El Al flight attendant, whose life has been crumbling around her for years. She wants nothing more than to be left alone, but things change when her Chinese housekeeper asks Miri to watch her son for an hour and never comes back. Despite the language barrier, Miri tries to reunite the boy she dubs "Noodle" with his mother. Noodle is a touching, light-hearted story about the importance of family and emotional healing.
Director: Ayelet Menahemi
Principal Cast: Mili Avital, Anat Waxman, Alon Aboutboul, Iftach Klein, Baoqi Chen

Grand Jury Prize and Best Screenplay at the Montreal World Film Festival

SUN APRIL 6, 7:00 pm  RIDGE

OCHBERG’S ORPHANS
Documentary 2007
Country: UK
Language: English
Run Time:  60 min

1921: In Russia a million children are without parents after six years of war, famine and disease. 300,000 of them have been orphaned by murderous anti-Semitic attacks, their lives hanging by a thread. In South Africa, businessman Isaac Ochberg dreams a dream of saving some of these helpless and lost souls. Filmed in the original locations, together with unique archive footage and testimony from survivors, "Ochberg's Orphans" reveals this unknown story of heroism. Today, in a century dominated by wars, genocides and displaced peoples, Ochberg's legacy is a reminder that a small act can make a big difference.
Director: John Blair

SUN MARCH  30, 2:45 FIFTH AVE

PARPARIM
Short Feature 2007
Country: Netherlands
Language: Dutch with English subtitles
Run Time:  15 min

Simcha decides to have Gideon, an ultra-Orthodox boy from Jerusalem, stay at her house as part of an exchange program at her school. Gideon, however, has no idea that Simcha is a girl.  But Gideon`s religious fervency prevents him from continuing a relationship -- or does it? An honest and entertaining look at how children express their beliefs, desires and how they relate to one another.
Director: Jaap Van Heudsen

TUES APRIL 1, 1:30 pm FIFTH AVE
SUN APRIL 6, 11:00 am OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

PAPER DOLLS
Documentary 2006
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew/ English/ Tagalog w/ English subtitles
Run Time: 84 min

Paper Dolls  explores changing patterns of global immigration and expanding notions of family through the prism of a community of Filipino transvestites who live illegally in Israel. Cast out by their families because of their sexual and gender preferences, they work 6 days a week as live-in, 24 hour a day care givers (and in many cases as surrogate
children) for elderly orthodox Jewish men, in order to earn money to send to their families in the Philippines. On their one free night per week, they pursue their own personal dreams as drag performers in the group they call "The Paper Dolls."
Despite the often harsh working conditions, threats by street criminals, fear of terrorist bombings and the constant peril of deportation, The Paper Dolls demonstrate a rare generosity of spirit, humanity and lust for life.
Director: Tomer Heymann

SUN MARCH 30, 4:30 pm FIFTH AVE

PRAYING WITH LIOR
Documentary, 2007
Country: USA
Language: English
Duration: 87 min

This engrossing, intimate, often humorous and tender documentary film, introduces Lior Liebling, also called "the little rebbe." Lior has Down syndrome, and has spent his entire life praying with utter abandon. Is he a "spiritual genius" as many around him say, or simply the vessel that contains everyone's unfulfilled wishes and expectations? Lior - whose name means "my light" - lost his mother at age six, and her words and spirit hover over the film. While everyone agrees Lior is closer to God, he's also a burden, a best friend, an inspiration, and an embarrassment, depending on which family member is speaking. As Lior approaches his Bar Mitzvah,  the movie poses difficult questions such as what is "disability" and who really talks to God.
Director: Ilana Trachtman

WED APRIL 2, 7:00 pm NRT - BUY TICKETS>> 
THURS APRIL 3, 4:30 pm Fifth AVE

RABIN - PERES: EVERYTHING IS PERSONAL
Documentary, 2007
Country: Israel
Language: English and Hebrew with English subtitles
Run Time: 64 min

Called "Enemies: Not a Love Story" by the Jerusalem Post this Israeli television documentray traces the 60 year public feuding and rivalry  between Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin and their struggles for leadership of the Labor Party of Israel and control of the country. Rabin, a sabra, born into the  labor zionist elite, rose through the ranks of the pre-state Palmach, then the army to the leadership of his party and his country. Peres, a Polish immigrant to Israel as a child, started his career by being noticed by and attracting himself to David Ben Gurion. Rabin, known for simplicity and directness in expression, a man who disliked politics and politicians is contrasted with Peres whose bent is toward intellectualism and poetry.  This film deals with each man allowing the audience to vicariously experience their set backs and successes and to assess how their rivalry affected not only each of them but how it ultimately affected Israel's quest for peace. Although forced to work together due to the political realities of the day, each man retained a supreme dislike of the other which affected many of their decisions. Rabin, who called Peres "the snake" never lost his belief that Peres would ever stop attacking him. This film features never-before seen footage and exclusive interviews.
Director: Arik Henig 

SUN APRIL 6, 12:30 pm, OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>

ROSENZWEIG’S FREEDOM / Rosenzweig's Freiheit
Drama, 1998
Country:  Germany
Language:  German with English subtitles
Run Time: 90 min

Germany, September 1991.  A group of skinheads have attacked a hostel occupied by foreign asylum seekers.  After the attack, Michael Rosenzweig, who had been at the hostel with his Vietnamese girlfriend, is seen in the vicinity firing a handgun.  That same night, a Neo-Nazi leader is found shot dead.  Despite not being able to remember the events of the night, Rosenzweig is arrested and charged with murder.  His brother, a young, brash, lawyer, takes on his defence.  The fact that the two are children of Holocaust survivors adds several layers of psychological drama to the case.  Rosenzweig's Freedom is suspenseful and exciting entertainment, but more importantly, the film takes a critical look at German xenophobia that has plagued that country since reunification.  Although the characters are fictitious, the film is based on actual incidents.
Director:  Liliane Targownik

Best Original Feature Film, Hollywood Film Festival 1999

SUN, MARCH 30, 6:45 pm FIFTH AVE

SAMUEL BAK: PAINTER OF QUESTIONS
Documentary, 2003
Country: Canada
Language: English
Run Time:  48 min

In 2001, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibit of his work, painter Samuel Bak returned to his hometown of Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania).  There, he walked the streets of the Vilna ghetto where he was interned with his parents during the Holocaust and visited the nearby forest where his father and grandparents were murdered. Amongst the tall trees of the Ponari forest, Samuel Bak's life came full circle.
"Ignited by haunting images from his memories of the horror of the Holocaust, Bak's work reflects not just the fragility of human existence but also the triumph of the human spirit in the face of atrocity. The imagery in his paintings-from discarded and distorted teddy bears to his immensely moving self-portrait, in which a wide-eyed boy emerges from a burlap sack-allows viewers to travel in both time and state of mind to places far beyond the Holocaust."
Director: Christa Singer

MON MARCH 31, 7:00pm NRT - BUY TICKETS>>

SAVED BY DEPORTATION/ Uratowani przez Deportacje
Documentary, 2006
Country: USA, Russia, Poland, Uzbekistan
Language: English, Russian and Yiddish with English subtitles
Run Time: 81 min

This documentary, directed by Slawomir Grundberg and written by Robert Podgursky, two Polish Jews, tells the story of how Stalin, beating Hitler to the punch, deported 200,000 Polish Jews in 1940 from Russian occupied eastern Poland to forced labor settlements in the Soviet interior thereby unknowingly and unintentionally saving them from Hitler's final solution which resulted in the death of approximately three million Polish Jews. This history is revealed through the present day story of seven deportees but especially the story of Asher and Shifra Scharf, a Chasidic couple in their 80s, as they travel through Poland, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikstan retracing their route, 60 years earlier, to the Gulag labor camps. The film deals with fate, how Stalin's deportation, initially a death sentence, turned into the gift of life.  As Asher Scharf says in the beginning of the film. "When it's meant to be that you should be alive, you stay alive." This film examines how that happened for Asher, Shifra and the others.
Director: Slawomir Grundberg

WED, APRIL 2, 12:00 Noon, FIFTH AVE

SECRETS : A GOD GIVEN VOICE (Ofra Haza)
Documentary, 2005
Country: Israel
Language: English and Hebrew with English subtitles
Run Time: 85 min

This is the amazing story of the famous Israeli vocalist, Ofra Haza, her rise to the top and the scerets surrounding her untimely and mysterious death. Haza, the youngest of nine children, grew up in the porr Tel Aviv neighborhood of Hatikvah.  The love of her Yemenite Jewish culture translated into her song writing and singing allowed her to reach a braod based Middle Eastern audience. Reaching the pinnacle of her career was not enough for Ofra Haza. She desperately wanted to fall in love and marry. At 38 she met, Doron Ashkenazi,  the man who was to become her husband, marrying in July 1997. He totally took control of her career firing all of those who had managed and steered  Ms Haza's career. Two and a half years later on February 23, 2000 she was dead. This interesting film looks at Ofra Haza's life and death using interviews of many famous people who knew her and worked with her.
Director: Ofer Naim

MON  MARCH 31, 9:30 pm NRT - BUY TICKETS>>

SHALOM ASMARA
Documentary, 2004
Country: Italy
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Run Time: 31 min

It was in the second half of 1800 that Jews, from the Arab peninsula south and in large part from Aden, victims of repeated pogroms, went to the western coasts of the Red Sea an towards Massawa in particular. They were attracted by prospects of urbanization and commercial development that the newborn Italian colony d'eritrea seemed to promise. In the early 1900's other Jews moved to  Asmara, which soon became a city of reference for Jews who tried hospitality in Eritrea.  In Eritrea there still remains the obvious memory of a Jewish presence and this memory is kept with nostalgia by the elderly and the faithful of other religions. Shalom Asmara tells of a city where people continue to live together harmoniously with different languages, cultures and different religions.
Directors: Marco Cavallarin, Marco Mensa

FRI APRIL 4, 12:30 pm OAKRIDGE - BUY TICKETS>>