The 22nd Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival November 9th - November 18th 2010

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Film Archives Prior to 2007

2006

These are the films that played during the 18th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.

10 DAYS IN GAZA
Israel, 2005, 65 minutes
Director: Dov Gil-Har
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
On the 15th of August 2005, Israel embarked on a journey that changed its face towards the world. Though lasting only 10 days, Israel's disengagement from the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and the northern west bank, marked a watershed event in the country's history, as mass demonstrations and bitter political battles coloured the bold division which cut through the social, political and economic strata of Israeli society, leaving many homeless and many more reeling from the traumatic event. Throughout the ten days of disengagement, Israel's leading channel two news covered breaking events with 18 correspondents streaming live reports from all settlements throughout the coastal territory.

39 POUNDS OF LOVE
USA, 2005, 70 minutes
Director: Dani Menkin
Language: English, Hebrew and Spanish with subtitles
Cast:
- Winner of the 2005 Israeli Ophir Award for Best Documentary Film
Part love story, part road trip movie, 39 Pounds of Love is the poignant and inspiring story of Ami Ankilewitz, an extraordinary Israeli man who redifines the word "survivor." Diagnosed with a dangerous and severe form of muscular dystrophy, doctors predicted he wouldn't live past six years of age. Now 34-years-old, weighing a shocking 39 pounds, and paralyzed except for one finger, Ami defies his extreme physical limitations to carry on a life of vitality in Tel Aviv working from his wheelchair as a computer animator. Amis travels to the United States, where he was born, for a cross-country road trip with friends to confront the doctor who predicted his early demise and to fulfil his lifelong dream of riding a Harley Davidson. Unflinching and inspirational as Ami himself, 39 Pounds of Love is a portrait of sheer determination like nothing seen on screen before. 

A BRIDGE TO PEACE
Neatherlands, 2005, 52 minutes
Director: Rob Simons
Language: English and Dutch with English subtitles
Cast:
In June 2005, a unique group of international musicians joins together for a powerfully symbolic concert tour of Poland --- American stage and screen legend Theodore Bikel; Dutch singer Shura Lipovski; and the Mostar Sinfonietta orchestra, an ensemble of Christian and Muslim survivors of the war in Bosnia. Performances are conducted by esteemed American music director Tamara Brooks, a graduate of the Julliard School of Music. Their tour starts in Warsaw, goes to Lublin, and the grand finale is in Cracow at the 15th anniversary of the Jewish Cultural Festival. Featuring a mix of traditional Yiddish, Sephardic and Bosnian folk songs, the concert demonstrates that bridges of peace can be built among people of diverse cultures and ethnicities.

ABE NATHAN - AS THE SUN SETS
International Premiere
Israel, 2005, 78 minutes
Director: Eytan Harris
Language: Hebrew and English with English subtitles
Cast:
In February 1966, restaurateur and socialite, Abe Nathan, took off from a small airport in a tiny single-engine plane. Heading south, he embarked on a one-man peace crusade to Egypt, Israel's worst enemy at that time, a mission that has lasted his whole life. The press reported that his plane had crashed and that Abe was dead. But when he re-appeared the next day, healthy and whole returning from Egypt, he was transformed into a national and international hero. 
Abe Nathan has dedicated his life and wealth to peace and humanitarian aid in Israel and abroad - reaching forgotten corners of the world to bring comfort and aid to the victims of natural and human disasters. Creating the 'Voice of Peace' pirate radio station, he broadcasted music and messages of peace for two decades before he sank the Peace Ship with his own hands. This film takes an intimate look at a complex and challenging man who made a difference in the lives of so many.

A CANTOR`S TALE
USA, 2005, 95 minutes
Director: Erik Greenberg Anjou
Language:
Cast:
In director Erik Greenberg Anjou's exhilarating documentary tribute to Chazzanut, the cantorial art, Jacob (Jack) Mendelson, a cantor with a personality as big as his voice, takes Eric and the viewer on a guided tour of his Boro Park neighborhood, where, when Jack was a boy, cantors reigned supreme and music was the air he breathed.

ALIVE FROM THE ASHES
Intrernational Premiere
Israel, 2005, 54 minutes
Director: Itzik Kol
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
A story of stubborn heroism in the Vale of Tears created in occupied Europe by the Nazi's, Alive From the Ashes is a tale of survival and miraculous rebirth. Avraham Harshalom, at 16, was the sole member of his family to survive the Nazi "death factory" of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Confronted by the diabolically murderous designs of the Nazis, Avraham made up his mind not to give in, not to die, but to live and see the downfall of the Nazi oppressors. He withstood the constant trials of the death-camp, escaped twice and, at war's end, turned over a new leaf and began a new life in Czechoslovakia. Four years later he moved again - this time to Israel, where he found his roots, served in the air force, raised a family and established a flourishing international business.
This film documents a journey to the past. In the summer of 2004, Avraham Harshalom visited the major stations of his past, together with his children and grandchildren. This film is very personal but represents the story of many Holocaust survivors and their families.

AND THE GATES OPENED: WOMEN IN THE RABBINATE
USA, 2005, 60 minutes
Director: Debra Gonsher Vinik
Language:
Cast:
And the Gates Opened, Women in the Rabbinate is a moving look at the history and struggle of women for the right to be ordained as rabbis. It includes the personal stories of and interviews with the three first women ordained, Rabbi Sally Priesand, Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and Rabbi Amy Eilber, of the Reform, Reconstructionist and COnservative Movements respectively.

ARYAN COUPLE
USA, 2005, 119 minutes
Director: John Daly
Language:
Cast: Martin Landau, Judy Parfitt
A WWII Drama about a German/Jewish industrialist who, in order to ensure his family's safe passage out of Germany, is forced to hand over his business to the Nazis.
Occupied Hungary 1944. Hans and Ingrid Vassman are the perfect Aryan couple. Young, married, in love and expecting their first child, they work as valet and maid for an elderly Jewish couple, the Krauzenbergs, in their magnificent palace in the Hungarian Countryside. They have everything to look forward to - or so they would have you believe. Hitler's ‘Final Solution' is sweeping through Europe. Himmler, the Fuhrer's second-incommand, has instigated ‘The Europe Plan', offering rich Jewish families the chance to emigrate and avoid the concentration camp--and certain death--in exchange for everything they own. The Wealthy Krauzenbergs, desperate to save their family, make a deal and the Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler has decided to visit them in person to guarantee them safe passage and ensure the smooth transfer of all they own to his possession. They will be joined at a dinner by ‘the devil himself', none other than Adolph Eichmann, in charge of the death camps, to ensure all goes smoothly. But first, a detailed security check is to take place on all employees, and Vassman and Ingrid, the two Aryans, are coming under close scrutiny.

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC
USA, 2005, 40 minutes
Director: Richard Trank
Language:
Cast:
Beautiful Music follows the relationship between an Orthodox Jewish woman and a blind, autistic Palestinian girl. In 1978 Devorah, an American-born pianist living on the outskirts of Jerusalem, began teaching 9-year-old Rasha, an abandonded, blind and severely autistic Palestinian girl from Bethlehem who was taken in by Dutch-Christian missionaries Helene and Edward Vollbehr. For 18 years, through two Intifadas and the ups and downs of the peace process, Devorah has been giving piano lessons to Rasha, who is not only able to perform complicated musical pieces, but also to create original music. Narrated by Brooke Shields, Beautiful Music examines how the desire of people to live, work and play together continues in spite of the current Middle East conflict.

BLUES BY THE BEACH
USA, 2005, 75 minutes
Director: Joshua Faudem
Language:
Cast:
Israel is a place where daily life is both glory and affliction. A paradise of splendor and history set against a backdrop of sunshine, beaches, and war. Blues by the Beach focuses on the bartenders, waitresses, and regulars of a music bar called Mike's Place. Guides to an Israeli Experience, they still laugh, dance, and listen to music even though ever-present danger looms near. On Wednesday, April 30th, 2003 tragedy struck Mike's Place. Death and injury came in the twinkling of an eye when a suicide bomber hit the bar. Blues by the Beach illustrates the effects of terror, its aftermath, and moving on.

BOYS OF BUCHENWALD
Canada, 2002, 60 minutes
Director: Audrey Mehler
Language:
Cast:
Robbie Waisman, Elie Wiesel, and Joe Szwarcberg were three Jewish boys who knew the horrors of Buchenwald concentration camp. Their friendship began in 1945, soon after the American troops liberated the camp. As the trains full of orphaned children left Germany, the boys began to create a fraternity based on need, banded together against a world they did not trust.
Almosat 60 years after their liberation from Buchenwlad, the "boys" meet again, touring the homes in France and attending a reunion in Jerusalem. The bonds of friendship that helped them to rebuild lives after the Holocast are still strong. A treasure of archival footage and photos - seamlessly blended with the present - tells a remarkable, personal story.

DISTORTION
Israel, 2005, 103 minutes
Director: Haim Bouzaglo
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
These are the days of the Intifada in Israel: suicide bombing, tension and anxiety. Emotionally damaged in the wake of a terrorist attack and struggling with crippling writer's block, Haim, a Tel Aviv playwright attempts to make sense of the damage and his own tangled personal life by writing a new play. Looking for a way to get his creative juices flowing, Haim hires a private eye to trail his girlfriend, a documentary filmmaker who is making a film about a former military man. The decision throws their world out of kilter, as his stage play, her documentary, and the real life investigation all become dangerously interwoven. The drama builds slowly until it reaches a surprising theatrical climax. Distortion is an intellignet and gripping thriller that has won editing awards at several film festivals.

EDGAR G. ULMER - THE MAN OFF SCREEN
USA, 2004, 77 minutes
Directors: Michael Palm
Language:
Cast:
Documentary about the "King of the B's," includes clips and interviews with Roger Corman, Peter Bogdanovich, Wim Wenders, Joe Dante, and Ulmer's daughter, Arianne Ulmer, who will be in attendance to introduce the film. An investigation of Edgar G. Ulmer's amazingly protean career, which focuses on the genesis of his classics "The Black Cat" and "Detour," and features interviews with the latter film's femme fatale Ann Savage, his daughter Arianne Ulmer Cipes, and directors Peter Bogdanovich, Wim Wenders, Roger Corman and Joe Dante.

FIRST LESSON IN PEACE
Israel, 2005, 56 minutes
Director: Yoram Honig
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
Cast:
The Jewish-Arab conflict through the eyes of a six-year-old girl. Michal, the director's daughter, started school this year, at the mixed Arab-Jewish primary school "Neve Shalom - The Oasis of Peace". The film follows the clashes and encounters that Michal goes through her first year in school and her first year in the reality of the Middle East.

FORGOTTEN REFUGEES
Canadian Premiere
USA/Israel, 2005, 49 minutes
Director: Michael Gynszpan
Language:
Cast:
The Forgotten Refugees explores the history and destruction of Middle Eastern Jewish communities, some of which had existed for over 2,500 years. Employing extensive testimony of survivors from Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Iraq, the film recounts the stories - of joy and of suffering - that nearly a million individuals have carried with them for so long.
Segments on the contributions of Middle Eastern Jews to politics, business and music, testify to the enormously rich cultures which fleeing Jews left behind. The film weaves personal stories with dramatic archival footage of rescue missions, historic images of exodus and resettlement, and analysis by contemporary scholars, to tell the story of how and why the Arab world's Jewish population declined from one million in 1945 to several thousand today.

FREE ZONE
Israel, 2005, 90 minutes
Director: Amos Gitai
Language: Hebrew and English with English subtitles
Cast: Natile Portman, Hanna Laszlo
Natalie Portman stars alongside Hanna Laszlo, winner of the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. While in Jerusalem, Rebecca (Portman) breaks off her engagement. Emotional and heartbroken, she flees from her ex-fiancé to get her life together. Without a destination, she gets into a cab driven by Hanna (Laszlo), who is on her way to Jordan's Free Zone to pick up some money owed to her. Once there, a third party named Leila breaks the news that the money has vanished. The three women travel together with unresolved dilemmas while histories of loss and suffering suffuse the conversations in this gripping tale about displacement and personal identity. Portman gives a breathtaking performance in Free Zone, particularly in the film's sublime single-take opening.

FROM PHILADELPHIA TO THE FRONT
USA, 2005, 37 minutes
Directors: Berstein and Judy Gelles
Language:
Cast:
One of the few documentaries to explore the stories of Jewish-American World War II veterans, this film focuses on six Philadelphia men in their 80`s, and their individual experiences during the war and a bittersweet reunion they share in their old age. For Jews, the war to defeat Hitler had deeply personal significance. Combined with photographs from the men`s personal collections, the film includes rare archival footage, stills, and newsreels including Jewish soldiers celebrating Shabbot and Passover during wartime and the first Jewish service at Dachau after it was liberated. 

GO FOR ZUCKER
Germany, 2004, 91 minutes
Director: Dani Levy
Language: German with English subtitles
Cast: Henry Hubchen, Udo Samel
Director Dani Levy's latest feature is unique: an "unorthodox" comedy about modern German Jews outside the context of the Holocaust. Once a successful East German sports reporter, Jackie Zucker saw his fortunes fall with the Berlin wall. Now he's broke and his only hope is his mother's inheritance, but her will stipulates that he reconcile with his West German Orthodox Jewish brother.

GREEN FIELDS (Grine Felder)
USA, 1937, 97 minutes
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Language: Yiddish with English subtitles
Cast:
An ascetic young scholar is persuaded to stay with Jewish farmers as a rebbe to their children. The most critically acclaimed and beloved of American Yiddish talkies, Edgar G. Ulmer's soulful open-air adaptation of Peretz Hlrshbein's classic play heralded the Golen Age of Yiddish cinema. Green Fields celebrates an idyllic world of life on the land and love of yiddishayt. The Jewish farmers are played by brilliant character actors whose Yiddish is a delight to hear. No other movie has ever represented Jewish village life with such Lyricism.

HINEINI: COMING OUT IN A JEWISH HIGH SCHOOL
Canadian Premiere
USA, 2005, 60 minutes
Director: Irene Fayngold
Language:
Cast:
Hineini (Hebrew for "Here I Am") chronicles the story of one student's courageous fight to establish a gay-straight alliance at a Jewish high school in the Boston area and the transformative impact of her campaign on everyone involved. Beyond the struggle to create a supportive environment for gay and lesbian students and teachers at the school, this is the story of a community wrestling with the very definition of pluralism in diversity in a Jewish context. Shulamit Izen enters 9th grade at The New Jewish High School (now Gann Academy) longong to connect more deeply with her Jewish faith. She also starts school as an out lesbian. Using interviews with Shulamit, her family, teachers, and other students, both those who support her campaign and those who oppose it, allows the members of the community to tell their own story as it unfolds. What emerges is a potent story of Jewish pluralism and a community navigating the cross-currents of Jewish tradition and social change.

Film to be followed by DISCUSSION moderated by Out In Schools.

ISN'T THIS A TIME!
USA, 2005, 90 minutes
Director: Jim Brown
Language:
Cast:
On November 29, 2003, thousands of people descended on New York's Carnegie Hall for a Thanksgiving weekend concert billed as "Arlo Guthrie in concert with special guests in a tribute to Harold Leventhal." For the past half century, Leventhal managed the leading icons of folk music. His pivotal role is evidenced by the artists performing, including Pete Seeger, the Weavers (with the Bay Area.s own Ronnie Gilbert), Theodore Bikel, Leon Bibb and Peter, Paul and Mary. The event sold out before advertising ever hit the press.
Isn't This a Time! vividly captures the magnitude of this historic moment with the intimate feel of a family reunion. Between songs that have helped define contemporary American culture and testaments of the musicians, Leventhal appears front and center, expressing the vision that motivated him and the artists he represented.

KIBBUTZ
Israel, 2005, 56 minutes
Director: Racheli Schwartz
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
Kibbutz Hulata is located in the Upper Galilee. For 5 years Racheli Schwartz has been following the collapse and disintegration of her home. Most kibbuttzim in Israel are in a vicious syndrome of economic collapse as well as ideological bankruptcy. This has caused the destruction of the very essential assets of a kubbutz's life: the dining room, the heart of the Kibbutz, where members meet for meals, the communal laundry and the music room are all closed. Agriculture, the source of pride to a people returning to their land, is no longer profitable; orchards are being uprooted and the dairy is being dismantled. People become suspicious, isolated and begin to build fences around their homes. The film follows a number of members, each deeply influenced by the imminent death of the Kibbutz.

LIKE A FISH WITHOUT WATER
Israel, 2006, 56 minutes
Director: Leonid Prudovsky
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Esteban Gottfried, Tai Lifshitz, Fira Kantor, Avraham Mor
Marcelo is a non-religious young man, an actor and a single parent to his eleven years old daughter, Lucy. He's desperately looking for someone to help him improve his Hebrew accent. So he can pass the auditions for an Israeli Soap Opera. Anat, his religious teacher, is probably the best solution, but it seems that she hates soap operas, and is not so fund of her pupil either. In fact, she has her own problems: mainly her mother, Bruria, an energetic, not to say pushy lady, frantically seeking a perfect match for her daughter who has, in her eyes, clearly passed the proper wedding age.

LIVE AND BECOME
France/Israel, 2004, 140 minutes
Director: Radu Mihaileau
Language: Amharic, French, Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
- Winner of the Audience Award at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival
- Recipient of the Golden Swan for Best Screenplay at the Copenhagen International Film Festival
- Jury Prize at the Valenciennes Film Festival
This magnificent epic film, which is playing to standing ovations and great acclaim all over the world, is directed by Radu Miahileanu (Train of Life) and tells a story of one boy's survival from Ethiopian famine of the mid 80's. A mother conspires to send her seven year old son to Israel as part of a group of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) during "Operation Moses", though he is neither an orphan, nor Jewish. "Go," his mother commands him. "Live. Become". The child is raised as an adoptive son in a loving family, and embraces Judaism, but the pressure of keeping his secret and tension between the truth and reality, build to an emotional climax.

MOSHE SAFDIE: THE POWER OF ARCHITECTURE
Canada, 2004, 91 minutes
Director: Donald Winker
Language:
Cast:A film about the life and career of the brilliant Israeli-born architect. Born in Haifa in 1938, his family relocated to Montreal when he was a teenager, a move he disliked as a dedicated Zionist and socialist. Safdie burst onto the world stage at Expo '67 with the revolutionary Habitat, an apartment complex constructed from LEGO ®-like concrete blocks. He has since forged an international career, honored for his landmark designs and commitment to enlightened urban planning. Safdie continues to work in his native country, where he has designed numerous buildings of note, including the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. His major American commissions include the Telfair Museum of Art in Savannah, Georgia. The film follows Safdie from decade to decade and project to project, culminating with his master plan for the new Israeli city of Modi'in. Moshe Safdie is not just the story of an architect, but a film about his stimulating and provocative ideas on architecture and their relationship to society.

Co-Presented with the Architectural Institute of BC A DISCUSSION will follow the screening.

ODESSA ODESSA
France/Israel, 2004, 96 minutes
Director: Michale Boganim
Language: English, Russian, and Yiddish with English subtitles
Cast:
Beginning in the Ukrainian metropolis on the Black Sea, this beautiful documentary discovers the remnants of the once thriving Odessa Jewish community and follows it into "exile" amidst the environs of Brighton Beach, Brooklyn and Ashdod. These former Odessans long for a sense of belonging that cannot be replicated in their adopted homes despite the cohesive "little Odessas" in which they dwell. While their children adapt to their new homes more easily, the émigré pine for a paradise lost even as they confess that perhaps it never existed at all. "In Odessa we were Jews, here we are Russians," says one of them, lamenting the exile's dilemma. The gorgeous cinematography helps to convey the beauty and longing of these changed lives.

PEACE ONE DAY
UK, 2005, 80 minutes
Director: Jeremy Gilley
Language:
Cast:
Peace on Day is the story of one man's attempt to persuade the global community via the United Nations to offically sanction a global ceasefire day; a day of non-violencer; a day of Peace.
This documentary charts the remarkable 6-year journey of the filmmaker as he meets heads of state, Nobel Peace Laureates, aid agencies, freedom fighters, media moguls, the innocent victims of war and, eventually, everyone who is anyone at the UN. He travels the globe from Africa to the Middle East to South America and eventually to the UN Headquarters in New York, enlisting support for a resolution to realise his hopes. Despite Gilley's energenic perseverence and heavyweights such as Kofi Anan, the Dalai Lama and Mary Robinson coming "on board", protocol formalities, diplomatic indelicacies and dramatic unforseeable events work to frustrate Gilley's wish for humanity. And yet, an individual genuinely can make a difference: The UN International Day of Peace is now fixed in the calendar on 21st September annually.

ROUND TRIP
Israel, 2005, 95 minutes
Directors: Shahar Rozen
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Anat Waxman, Nthati Moshesh
- Winner of the Best International Feature award at the Torino Gay and Lesbian Film Festival
Nurit (Anat Waxman) is forty, is unfulfilled and a bus driver. She decides to leave her small town and unemployed husband and move to southern Tel Aviv with her two children. A surprise attraction develops between Nurit and her live in nanny from Ghana which threatens Nurit¹s future and family. Superbly acted and directed this is a compelling story of self discovery and identity.

RUTENBERG
Israel, 2003, 90 minutes
Director: Eli Cohen
Language:
Cast:
Pinchas (Peter) Rutenberg was a fascinating personality in the first part of the 20th century. His mysterious past in Russia and England, and his complex and contradictory personality, set the tone for this film. The story foucese on one stormy weekend in February 1931. A flood ruins the preparations for the opening of the new power station in Naharim, Rutenburg's last venture. Rutenberg embarks on a journey to the power station and recollects the days he surveyed the waters of the Jordan River with his brother. When he arrives at the damaged power station, he is shocked by the damage and begins to question his own power to stand against all odds. Despite the devastation and losses, Rutenberg manages to see beyond himself and finds new strength to carry on.
Rutenberg is the story of a man who was a true pioneer - larger than life, obsessive, conflicted. He was also a man who had to come to terms with the complicated politics of a new contry, his loved ones and his rivals.

SAM AND ME
Canada, 1991, 94 minutes
Director: Deepha Mehta
Language:
Cast: Peter Boretski, Ranjit Chowdhry
These days Deepha Mehta is one of Canada's most famous film directors, her hit movie Water greatly acclaimed wherever it screens. Back in 1991, though, she was a novice filmmaker when her Sam & Me screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Set in Toronto, it is the story of a growing friendship between an elderly Jewish man (Peter Boretski) and his caregiver, a young immigrant (Ranjit Chowdhry) from India. The film made more than one splash at the time. Besides marking the directorial debut of an important new Canadian filmmaker, it was one of the first films to celebrate Canada's increasing ethnic diversity. And it was a quality piece of filmmaking that received special mention when the awards were handed out at Cannes. Sam & Me is a poignant film that entertains the entire family while imparting a timeless message about the joys of discovering other cultures in a multicultural society.

SARAH SILVERMAN: JESUS IS MAGIC
USA, 2005, 71 minutes
Director: Liam Lynch
Language:
Cast:
A New Hampshire native who honed her skills at Boston comedy clubs, actress/comedian Sarah Silverman has appeared in The Aristocrats, on Late Night with David Letterman, The Larry Sanders Show, and Mr. Show, and at the 1998 Boston Jewish Film Festival with her movie Who’s the Caboose? Now, fresh from the Toronto International Film Festival, comes the film based on her 2004 hit off-Broadway show Jesus is Magic. A comic’s comic, Sarah Silverman’s humor is raw, jaw-droppingly provocative, and funny as hell. She is not for the faint of heart.

SENTENCED TO MARRIAGE
Israel, 2004, 65 minutes
Director: Anat Zuria
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
In Israel, where there is no legal separation of synagogue and state, the process of obtaining a divorce (a "get") is managed by rabbinical courts enforcing religious law. In contested divorces this can place women in the unbelievable position of being unable to obtain a divorce, even as their husbands live and have children with other women and refuse to pay their wives child support. The perverse plight of these shunned wives (known as "Agunot") is fought by a dedicated group of religious women-Orthodox rabbinical advocates-who help them negotiate the complex maze of hearings and filings. From the controversial filmmaker of Purity (WJFF 2002) comes a shocking exposé that challenges the ethics of a religious legal system that tolerates such abuses, while watching women struggle for freedom and fight for their rights for a future.

SERVING FOR PEACE
International Premiere
Israel, 2005, 40 minutes
Director: Omir Lior
Language: English, Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
Cast:
In 1998, Krivine established a Jewish-Arab committee to promote tennis among Israeli Arabs. Building a tennis centre in the coastal town of Jisr a-Zarka, Kirvine mobilized a number of Israeli Arab personalities to carry his message to Israel's Arab community.
The Israel Children's Centers (ICC) is a non-profit, social service organization established in 1976, and is the American organization in support of the Israel Tennis Centers (ITC) located throughout Israel.  Our aim is to raise funds in the American philanthropic community to enable the ITC to provide normalcy, recreation, guidance and self-confidence to all the children of Israel.  Through the teaching of life skills, ITC is working to develop the next generation of leaders for the State of Israel.
In 1974, the six original founders began fundraising efforts on behalf of the Israel Tennis Centers and began planning for a National Tennis Center to be located in Ramat Hasharon.  Their dream became a reality on April 25, 1976 when Leah Rabin cut the ceremonial ribbon at the Center, and 250 children signed up to participate.  Since that date, the dream has expanded to include 14 Centers located throughout Israel.  More than 350,000 children have flourished as a result of the ITC programs, which have been made possible by the dedication and support of an army of fundraisers.

SOPHIE SCHOLL - THE FINAL DAYS
Germany, 2006, 117 minutes
Director: Marc Rothemund
Language:
Cast: Julie Jentsch
- Winner of two Silver Bear awards for Best Director and Best Actress at the 2005 Berlin International Film Festival
- Winner of three Lolas (German Oscars) including Audience Award and Best Actress
- Academy Award Nominee 2006 for Best Foreign Language Film
In 1943, as Hitler continues to wage war across Europe, a group of college students mount an underground resistance movement in Munich. Dedicated expressly to the downfall of the monolithic Third Reich war machine, they call themselves the White Rose. One of its few female members, Sophie Scholl is captured during a dangerous mission to distribute pamphlets on campus with her brother Hans. Unwavering in her convictions and loyalty to the White Rose, her cross-examination by the Gestapo quickly escalates into a searing test of wills as Scholl delivers a passionate call to freedom and personal responsibility that is both haunting and timeless. The true story of Germany's most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to thrilling life in this award-winning drama. Armed with long-buried historical records of Sophie Scholl's incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of her life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence.

STANLIN'S LAST PURGE
Israel, 2005, 55 minutes
Director: Alan Rosenthal IN ATTENDANCE
Language: Russian, Yiddish with English voiceover
Cast:
In the nineteen thirties he executed millions. During WWII he was hailed as the country's messiah and savior. But later his paranoia grew. He saw enemies everywhere and decided to destroy them all in one final purge. But would he succeed?
Stalin's Last Purge not only details the plots of Stalin's final years; it is also the first comprehensive film to examine his actions from the view of Russia's Jewish leaders. They had supported Stalin in the war, but now they were among the condemned. Director Solomon Mikhoels was assassinated at night. Fifteen Jewish intellectuals were put on secret trial. And via the infamous Doctors' Plot of 1953 Stalin hoped to finally crush the Jews, purge the KGB, and get rid of Molotov, Beria and others. Shot in Russia, Israel and the United States, the film includes interviews with survivors, rare archival footage and information from prison files to tell the riveting story of life in the Soviet police state from the point of view of the Jewish community there.

THE ASHKENAZIN!
Israel, 2006, 50 minutes
Directors: Dalia Mevorach and Dani Dothan
Language: Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles
Cast:
The Ashkenazim! is a humorous and moving film about young Israelis in search of their Ashkenazi roots. These women and men seek to reconnect with their Jewish European heritage which they feel was suppressed in order for their ancestors to acclimate to their new Israeli and Middle Eastern envirnment. The Ashkenazim! follows the lives of a group of young women and men as they reconnect to their Ashenazi roots. Assaf Galay forms "Ashenazi Identity" to promote a cultural revolution in Israel. Tammy Ben-Tor creates an electro-Yiddish sexy cabaret. Itamar Handelman Ben Canaan, always ashamed of his Ashkenazi roots, falls in love with Olga, a new immigrant from Russia, and with her returns to the life style of his European ancestors. What makes these Israelis look back with longing at their Ashenazi history and can they bring some of their forefather's lost Jewish European culture to the Middle East?

THE FIRST TIME I WAS 20
France, 2004, 93 minutes
Director: Lorraine Levy
Language: French with English subtitles
Cast: Marilou Berry, Serge Riaboukine, Catherine Jacob
It's the 1960s, and sixteen-year-old Hannah is the awkward, smart, ugly duckling of her affectionate, yet stifling family. She lives in the Paris suburbs with her father, who works in a garage as a mechanic, her doting mother and her two sisters. Hannah's dream is to be chosen for her high school's jazz band - a small, all-male ensemble that travels and competes. She's talented at double bass and manages to be selected - but that's where her real troubles begin. The fact that she's female, Jewish and rather plain in appearance is all it takes for boys to begin giving her a hard time by playing nasty pranks. The First TIme I Was Twenty is a classic and thoroughly enjoyable tale of an underdog who struggles to find her place in a rather hostile environment. Berry is marvelous as a girl who remains true to herself, despite the temptation to relent. Laced with dark humour and a fabulous jazz soundtrack - this is the sort of uplifting film that will send you from the theatre with a smile on your face.

THE HUNGARIAN SERVANT
Italy, 2004, 108 minutes
Directors: Massimo Piesco and Giorgio Molteni
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Cast:
The casual cruelty of the German concentration camp Major is as stunning as the vacuousness of his beautiful wife. When the Major orders two Expressionist paintings destroyed, Miklos, an educated Hungarian Jew whom they've made their servant, explains their worth. By exploiting Dailermann's love of opera and music, and his wife's vanity, Miklos succeeds for a brief time in preserving certain works of art and prolonging the lives of musicians and artists deported to the death camp. With a shocking juxtaposition of beauty and brutality, the film is a fascinating contrast between the need for order, control and repression, and the artistic instincts and yearning for freedom that make us human.

There will be a DISCUSSION SESSION following the film, facilitated by Dr. Mark N. Wexler, Professor of Applied Rthics, Segal Graduate School of Business, Simon Fraser University and Dr. Gabor Maté, Vancouver based Physician and Author of several best selling books. 

THE SCHWARTZ DYNASTY
Israel, 2005, 104 minutes
Directors: Shmuel Hasfari, Amir Hasfari
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
A small Israeli town seethes with conflict, pitting its residents against each other and threatening to divide it: religious vs. secular, immigrants vs. the local population and dead against the living. Into this pressure cooker come two young people who try to bridge the opposing worlds: Anna, a beautiful young Russian woman, born to a Jewish man and a Christian mother, has come to Israel to fulfill her father's dying wish - to be buried  in the Holy Land. Avishai, a 24-year-old Orthodox Jew, descendant of a distinguished dynasty of Rabbis, struggles to overcome the tyranny of his father, a zealous Jewish settler, and his grandmother. Avishai's grandfather had committed suicide after being accused of accepting bribes, and the grandmother's only wish is to be buried beside her husband. The iron-willed old woman stirs the entire town into battle, dragging Avishai and Anna into the conflict. Soon they find each other, not only at odds, but in love.

TROPIC OF VENUS
Israel, 2005, 148 minutes
Director: Gur Bentvich
Language:
Cast:
Yoav "Joov" Noyman had everything. A young, good looking star at the peak of his career, he had money to burn and gorgeous women hanging around like flies. Life couldn't be better. That is until the police found the body of SHiry, his best friend, just hours after Shiry had arranged a blind date between Noav and Noga. Not only that, Noga is married to a powerful and angry amn, who finds out about the affair when video footage is posted on the internet. Yoav finds himself caught in the middle of a dangerous triangle and a murder investigation. The ambitious young police detective assigned the case is conviced that Yoav is the murderer and will stop at nothing to prove it. A fast-paced, inventively shot and well-acted drama, Tropic of Venus is like a novel that's impossible to put down; the twists and turns keep you guessing until the end.

WASSERMAN - THE RAIN MAN
Israel, 2005, 58 minutes
Director: Idit Shechori
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
Seventy-three year old Wasserman swore never to pray again. He blames God for his family's annihilation during the Holocaust. He is unwilling to forgive. But a dire situation forces Wasserman to reconsider. He needs money; his creditors are knocking on his door. The only way his religious neighbors will help him out is if he agrees to join them in the synagogue for a communal prayer to end the devastating drought that is plaguing their region. Now Wasserman has to confront his two daughters and grandson in a final attempt to hold on to his family and his land. He has 24 hours to make a decision...

WATERMARKS
Israel/France, 2004, 80 minutes
Director: Yaron Zilberman
Language:
Cast:
Watermarks tells the story of seven remarkable Jewish women athletes: Austrian national swimming champions and members of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Founded in 1909 in response to the Aryan Paragraph banning Jewish athletes from Austrian sports clubs, Hakoah quickly grew into one of Europe's largest athletic clubs. In the 1930s, its women's swimming team dominated the Austrian national competitions. The members fled the country when Hitler annexed Austria in 1938 and Nazis shut down the club. Today the women are in their 80s and scattered around the world. All swim daily. Director Yaron Zilberman lets these wonderful women speak for themselves, and he engineers a group swim in Vienna, their first reunion in sixty years.

WHEN DO WE EAT?
USA, 2005, 86 minutes
Director: Salvador Litvak
Language:
Cast: Michael Lerner, Jack Klugman, Ben Feldman, Lesley Ann Warren
This film is the story of how one family's idyllic Passover Seder turns into a holy disaster. First we have Ira Stuckman (Michael Lerner), the family patriarch who attempts to coerce his newly Chassidic son into joining him in the Christmas ornament business. His daughter Nikki announces she is launching a cyber-sex business, and stoner son Zeke (Ben Feldman) slips an acid laced Ecstasy pill into Dad's drink right before the Seder. In the end a true Seder miracle occurs when youngest son Lionel has a "spiritual awakening." Along with lush psychedelic visuals, this film takes us on a comedic journey of spiritual discovery and family forgiveness. The exceptional cast is rounded out with Lesley Ann Warren, Jack Klugman and Mili Avital.

WHISKY
Uruguay/Spain/Germany/Argentina, 2004, 99 minutes
Directors: Juan Pablo, Rebella and Pablo Stoll
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Cast:
When Jacobo, a lonely factory owner in Uruguay desperate to prove his life has added up to something, hears of the impending visit of his irritatingly cheerful brother, whom he hasn't seen in years, he enlists Marta - an employee at his sock factory - to pretend to be his wife, to much comedic effect.

YITGADAL VITKADASH: MEMORIAL STATUES IN THE STRASHUN FOREST
Israel, 2005, 12 minutes
Director: Dov Shinar
Language:
Cast:
In 1992, a Lithuanian mayor and a woodcarver, both non-Jews born after the Holocaust, erected three memorial wooden statues near the site where 2,200 Jewish men were murdered and buried half-alive by the Nazis and their local collaborators in August 1941. In the winter of 2004, the statues were burned down, a crime whose perpetrators have yet to be discovered by the Lithuanian Police. A last evidence of the original memorial, the chapters of the film - extermination, commemorarion. and desecration - show the beauty and strength of the statues alternating with brief interviews with the woodcarver and others.

 

2005

These are the films that played during the 17th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.


A JOURNEY OF SPIRIT
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 75 minutes
Director: Ann Coppel
Language:
Cast:
A Journey of Spirit is a documentary that tells the story of the remarkable singer, songwriter and guitarist Debbie Friedman. One of the preeminent women in contemporary Jewish culture, Debbie has integrated contemporary melody with Jewish liturgy to transform Jewish sacred music, making the text accessible to a large and diverse audience. A Journey of Spirit explores the tremendous power this artist and leader has to promote spirituality, healing, and community. Viewers are treated to a lively and heartfelt exchange as A Journey of Spirit places the debate about contemporary versus traditional prayer music squarely on the table.

AMERICA
Israel, 2004, Beta SP, 23 minutes
Director: Sigal Mordechai
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
David , a widower in his 70's and Ezra, a bachelor in his late 50's have been planning a trip to America for years, until the presence of a woman complicates things in this film where the two brothers face the difficult issues of getting old, loneliness and mutual dependency as well as the desire to pursue their own individual goals.

AMERICAN MATCHMAKER
Comedy, USA, 1940, 35mm, 87 minutes
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Language: Yiddish with English Subtitles
Cast: Leo Fuchs, Judith Abarbanel, Judel Dubinsky, Anna Guskin
Leo Fuchs, the "Yiddish Fred Astaire" stars in this musical comedy at Nat Silver, a debonair and fabulously wealthy Jewish-American businessman whose recent engagement (his eighth) goes awry. In this newly restored 35mm print, this slick sophisticate decides that he must learn how to arrange a good marriage in order to find himself a good match, and reinvents himself as a shadchen (matchmaker). Not your traditional matchmaker, Nat sets off on his new venture, which he knows nothing about, in ascot and morning coat, and refuses to charge for his services, already off to a questionable start. In this romantic comedy set in Manhattan's Upper West Side, the old ways of the shtetl clash with New York sophistication with just the right combination of humour and schmaltz.


ART OF APOLOGY
Canada, 2005
Director: Dr. Hinda Avery
Language:
Cast:
How does a country make amends for the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust? One woman travels through Europe visiting memorial sites looking for an answer to that question.

AVANIM
Drama, France/Israel, 2004, 35mm, 107 minutes
Director: Raphael Nadjari
Language: Hebrw with English Subtitles
Cast: Assi Levy, Uri Gavriel, Danny Steg, Shaul Mizrahi
Winner of the top prize at the Geneva International Film Festival, Avanim is the story of Michale, a married Israeli woman who works as an accountant in her father's firm. Her harried lifestyle, trying to balance work, family and an illicit affair, changes forever when her lover is killed in a terrorist attack. Her life slowly unravels as she tries to cope silently with his death, while trying to keep up with her day to day obligations. Assi Levy gives a beautifully nuanced performance as a woman who struggles to make difficult decisions that will have far reaching effects while secretly mourning the loss of her lover.

AWAKE ZION
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 45 minutes
Director: Monica Haim
Language: English, Patois
Cast:
Awake Zion is a documentary that explores the connections between reggae culture and Judaism. The film is a look at the modern-day cultural world of Jewish reggae, a journey to Israel, where Ethiopian Jews reside, where a small, sizzling reggae scene thrives, and its role as a healing agent in a war-torn reality. Then, of course, to Jamaica, where reggae and Rasta were born. Through the themes of music, roots and culture, it aims to expose the senselessness of hate or intolerance by highlighting kinship as opposed to difference.

BERNIE
Documentary, USA, 2005, Beta SP, 62 minutes
Director: Jay Heyman
Language:
Cast:
As filmmaker Jay Heyman grew older, he felt compelled to document the story of his grandfather Bernie. Grandpa Bernie grew up in the Hebrew Orphan Asylum in New York City, never knowing either parent or having an identity of his own, separate from the orphanage. After spending eleven years in the orphanage, he later returned to the institution as a professional social worker in an effort to bring about much needed change. Amidst professional success, Bernie suffered through the premature losses of loved ones, yet moved forward to create new relationships with a contagious enthusiasm for life that lasted almost 97 years. This is a wonderful, inspirational celebration of family and life.

BONJOUR MONSIEUR SHLOMI
Comedy, Israel, 2003, 35mm, 94 minutes
Director: Shemi Zarhin
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast: Oshri Cohen, Arieh Elias, Esti Zakheim
Shlomi takes care of everyone. He feeds his grandfather, bathes him and listens to his fictitious stories from World War II. He reminds his older brother to take his medication on time and intently listens to his pornographic thoughts. He calms his quick-tempered mother and mediates between her and his hypochondriac father who was thrown out of the house after cheating on her. He looks after his older sister`s twins and makes sure she keeps going back to her husband who can`t tell the difference between the identical babies. And most of all, Shlomi makes sure to make everyone happy by cooking their favorite dishes. But no one in the family really sees Shlomi. Even Shlomi doesn`t see Shlomi. Until one day a routine math test arouses the suspicions of Shlomi`s math teacher and school principal. After meeting and talking with him, they realize that a very unique and gifted personality is hiding behind this neglected and dormant boy. With their help and the help of Rona the gardener with whom he falls head over heels in love, Shlomi discovers himself. Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi is a heartening family comedy, a surprising love story, which focuses on the captivating character of one boy blessed with extraordinary talents, who discovers through the power of love that the sky is the limit.

CARAVAN 841
Drama, Israel, 2001, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Zion Rubin
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast: Avi Ashkenazi, Yossi Vasa, Shiri Ashkenazi
In this emotionally powerful drama, we see a compelling vision of contemporary immigrant life in Israel. Moshe, an 11 year-old Ethipian boy, lives in dwindling "Atidim" caravan site in the Western Galilee and is awaiting the arrival of his mother from Ethiopia. While he waits, he is torn between the influences of Aharon, a 60-year-old repentant Jew who teaches him Torah, and Walter - an impulsive African American saxophone player from New York who has a jazz club at the edge of the site. Aharon gives Moshe a magic box and promises him that it will bring his mother to Israel. Walter gives Moshe the strength to believe only in himself. Beautiful, bittersweet, and hopeful, CARAVAN 841 reveals the reality of Ethiopian immigrant life.

CBC/ZED SHORTS PROGRAM
Curated by CBC's Zed Film curator Sue Biely

OY! IT'S A BOY!
Lenny Epstein
Ontario, Canada
Unsnipped and unbaptised - the newest addition challenges family traditions.

TIERHEIM
Jason Margolis
BC, Canada
"Kill the boy! Kill the boy!" A paleontologist looks for a bone, a blind woman searches for her dog, and a scientist tries to find a soul in this ode to silent film expressionism.

RUGGED RICH AND THE ONA ONA
Eric Finkel
BC, Canada
Rich hates the outdoors. Jane is a nature jock. Rich is so smitten with Jane that he can't bear to tell the truth - even if that means having to confront a really
weird tropical fish.

BREGMAN, EL SIGUIENTE
Federico Veiroj
Spain
A coming of age story about a young Jewish boy in Spain.

MILO 55160
David Ostry
Ontario, Canada
Milo 55160, heavens lonliest bureaucrat, meets Will, a boy who is struggling to stay alive on earth. When Will disappears, Milo embarks on a journey through the afterlife that changes him forever.

LA LUZ DE LA PRIMERA ESTRELLA (WHEN THE FIRST STAR LIGHTS UP IN THE SKY)
Manuel F. Torres
Spain
All man have a right to die with a hat.

GRANDMOTHER, HITLER AND I
Carl Johan De Geer
Sweden
To most people, condemning Nazism is a matter of common sense. But not to all. Carl John De Geer lived as a child a few years with his grandmother who was a
Nazi, even after WWII. Much later, after her death, he started to ponder what could have made his grandmother believe in Nazism and Hitler to such an extent.

I PIE (A LOVE STORY)
Nobu Adilman
Ontario, Canada
A pie-maker struggles to explain what's behind his life-long love of making pies. A humourous look into an eccentric's life, this dead-pan delivered
philosophical faux doc follows the making of a pie from raw ingredients to tasty treat.

COLUMBIA: THE TRAGIC LOSS
Documentary, Israel, 2004, Beta SP, 60 minutes
Director: Naftaly Gliksberg
Language: English, Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
Following the tragic loss of the Columbia, the personal diary of Ilan Ramon, filled with his thoughts from his journey in space, was found at one of the crash sites. The partly erased handwriting in the diary was reconstructed, revealing Ramon's compelling story.  Columbia ­ The Tragic Loss portrays the inner world of the first Israeli astronaut who lit up the skies with his bravery and love of mankind. Exclusive footage is the heart of this documentary, depicting the charged moments of preparation, the excitement of the launch and, ultimately, the heartbreaking disaster, the disintegration of the Columbia.

FACING WINDOWS
Italy/UK/Turkey/Portugal, 2003, 35mm, 106 minutes
Director: Ferzan Ozpetek
Language: Italian with English Subtitles
Cast: Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Massimo Girotti, Raoul Bova, Filippo Nigro
1943, Italy: A young baker's apprentice murders his employer before running off into the night in a frantic search for someone or something.  Sixty years later we find Giovanna and her husband Filippo who one night brings home a confused elderly man found wandering in the streets. The older man's presence and the mystery of his identity begin to have a profound effect on Giovanna.  At the same time Giovanna begins a fling with a neighbour Lorenzo (Italian heartthrob Raoul Bova).  As the secrets of the old man's past are slowly revealed, Lorenzo and Giovanna grow closer, consumed by the fate of the old man.  As he begins to slowly put the pieces of his life back together, Giovanna finds herself facing a series of choices about her own life, family, and future. Winner Best Film, Best Actor, Best Actress Italian Golden Globe Awards.

FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART: AMOS VOGEL AND CINEMA 16
Documentary, United Kingdom, 2003, Beta SP, 56 minutes
Director: Paul Cronin
Language:
Cast:
Vogel, as a young Jew in Austria, fled the Nazis and found a home in New York, where he founded Cinema 16, the most influential film society in U.S. history. Vogel was one of the essential personalities in the early rise of American independent film - the first to regularly program avant-garde cinema, playing a pivotal role by introducing North American audiences to such filmmakers as John Cassavetes and Roman Polanski. He also founded the New York Film Festival and authored Film as a Subversive Art, a classic text about foreign and independent cinema. Cronin combines old footage, photographs and leaflets with excerpts of films that screened at Cinema 16 and current interviews. The result is a thoroughly engaging documentary which, like Vogel, encourages audiences to see the world in new ways. "In the last analysis," Vogel wrote, "every work of art, to the extent that it is original and breaks with the past instead of repeating it, is subversive."

FINDING ELEAZAR
USA, 2004, Beta SP, 80 minutes
Director: Paula Heil Fisher
Language:
Cast:
You don't have to be an opera lover to enjoy Paula Heil Fisher's documentary which follows American tenor Neil Shicoff as he prepares for the role of his career in the 1999 revival of the French opera LA JUIVE (THE JEWESS). The opera, created in 1835 by librettist Eugène Scribe and composer Jacques Fromental Halévy, tells the story of Eléazar, a Jewish jeweler, and his family who must renounce their faith or be killed. It was banned by the Nazis in 1936, not seen again until 1999 when the Vienna State Opera staged a production as a vehicle for Shicoff.

A candid, behind-the-scenes look at the preparation that goes into such a demanding role, Finding Eleazar is both humourous and moving. The film also includes footage of the making of a music video by academy-award-winning director Sidney Lumet. The film culminates in Shicoff's breathtaking performance of the Rachel Aria, an unforgettable experience.

GLOOMY SUNDAY
Drama, Germany/Hungary, 1999, 35mm, 112 minutes
Director: Rolf Schübel
Language: English, Hungarian, German with English Subtitles
Cast: Erika Marozsán, Joachim Król, Ben Becker, Stefano Dionisi
Gloomy Sunday is a love story that takes place during the turmoil of World War II. Two men fall in love with the beautiful Ilona: Laszlo, the owner of Restaurant Szabo, and Andras, the pianist who, so inspired by Ilona's beauty, composes a tragically beautiful song that causes people who listen to it to take their own lives. The film opens in contemporary Budapest with the celebration of an 80th birthday at Restaurant Szabo. When the pianist starts to play the haunting "Gloomy Sunday", the man collapses. We then backtrack to the Budapest eatery as the turmoil of World War II engulfs Hungary, We meet Hans, a German SS officer, also in love with Ilona, who offers to protect the Jewish Laszlo from the fate that awaits him. The complicated love stories play out against the looming Nazi invasions. Gloomy Sunday is an elegantly beautiful and absorbing film.

HEIR TO AN EXECUTION
Documentary, USA, 2004, 35mm, 99 minutes
Director: Ivy Meeropol
Language: English
Cast:
Heir to an Execution is the story of a family torn apart on June 19th, 1953 when Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed for "conspiracy to commit espionage." When their names were seared into history that day, as both martyrs and "Atom Spies," the young Jewish couple left behind two orphaned boys - Michael and Robert. Ivy Meeropol, the eldest granddaughter of the Rosenbergs, and Michael's daughter, embarks on a remarkable journey into her family's past that sheds new light on a chapter in American history and provides a personal perspective on the iconic event.

IMPACT OF TERROR
Documentary, Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Tim Wolochatiuk
Language:
Cast:
One moment it was a bustling pizzeria filled with families and students; the next, a mass of twisted metal, broken glass and bodies. After a young man detonated an innocuous-looking guitar full of explosives in the restaurant, lives changed forever. Fifteen people were killed and dozens injured. Today, the survivors and families of victims are still living with the physical and emotional scars from that horrific day. Impact of Terror goes beyond the headlines with an in-depth look at the Aug. 9, 2001, Sbarro restaurant bombing in Jerusalem to explore how the effects of terrorism radiate beyond the immediate act.

IN SATMAR CUSTODY
Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 70 minutes
Director: Nitzan Giladi
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
This spellbinding documentary tells the story of a Jewish family from Yemen who leave their native country for the ultra-orthodox Satmar Hassidic sect of New York. The filmmaker reveals how deception and a deep cultural divide eventually results in tragedy. Like other Jewish couples from Yemen, Yahia and Lauza Jaradi were lured by skillful missionaries promising a warm welcome in America with promises of work and education. As revealed in this eye-opening documentary thriller, life within the closed Satmar community proves to be a harsh surprise when the Jaradi children are confiscated from their parents when their youngest daughter is hospitalized after an accident. This is a stirring and disturbing film that is not to be missed.

JEW JUBE LIVES
Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 6 minutes
Director: Michael Davidson
Language:
Cast:
Jewish Rap star Jew Jube, aka Shmuley Zeidelman, is a pop culture phenomenen. On the music video set of his latest hit, "Be Your Own Messiah," we learn about the controversy surrounding his next project...world peace.

LE GRAND ROLE
Drama/Comedy, France, 2004, Beta SP, 89 minutes
Director: Steve Suissa
Language: French and Yiddish with English Subtitles
Cast: Stéphane Freiss, Bérénice Bejo, Peter Coyote, Lionel Abelanski
Le Grand Role presents us with a group of Parisian-Jewish actors struggling for their big break. When the famous American director Grichenberg (Peter Coyote) comes to Paris looking to cast the role of Shylock for his all-Yiddish production of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Maurice, one of the struggling actors, gets the part. But with this momentary triumph comes a greater challenge when Maurice is replaced in the production by a famous American star and he finds out his wife is seriously ill. Maurice finds himself in the role of a lifetime as he seeks, with the help of his friends, to conceal the lost role from his wife. A charming and heartwarming film that illuminates the meaning of art, love and truth with pathos and humour.

LIFE FOR LAND
Documentary, Israel, 2004, Beta SP, 59 minutes
Director: Tamar Wishnitzer-Haviv
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
Life For Land chronicles the feelings of both a Jewish and a Palestinian community following a pair of killings in the occupied Palestinian territory. From her window in the settlement of Maon, in the occupied territories, Adi gazes at the hill where she and her Dov dreamed of living. They began building their home on the hill, threatening Palestinian inhabitants of the area and he was eventually killed in a confrontation. Dov's death took on symbolic meaning among the other settlers. His thirty year old widow was left to care for their four children. The Israeli-Palestine conflict as it is reflected in the Maon events serves as a background for the changes that Adi goes through. Following Dov's death, she is torn by her commitment to her ideology on one hand and her desire to protect her private life on the other.

LOSER WHO WON
Australia, 2004, Beta SP, 19 minutes
Director: Jack Feldstein
Language:
Cast:
An experimental digital short shot in neonism, The Loser Who Won is about John Brinkman, a loser from Melbourne who's unlucky in love, moves to Sydney and with the help of a pushy 90 year old Jewish pensioner, finally find true love.

LOST EMBRACE
Drama, Argentina/France/Italy/Spain, 2004, 35mm, 100 minutes
Director: Daniel Burman
Language: Spanish with English subtitles
Cast: Daniel Hendler, Adriana Aizenberg, Jorge D'Elia, Sergio Boris
Lost Embrace (Silver Bear winner 2004 Berlin Film Festival) is a tale of a young man coming to terms with his heritage and his relationship with his absent father set in the context of Jewish exile in Argentina. Ariel dreams of escaping from his job at his mother's lingerie store in a Buenos Aires shopping mall and leaving behind the eccentric and multicultural cast of characters. His dream? To emigrate to Poland. He applies for a passport on the grounds that his grandmother was born there, even though she fled to Argentina during the Nazi invasion. No longer able to avoid his anger towards his family, Ariel must deal with his feelings toward his father, who left the family to fight for Israel in 1973 and never returned. Lost Embrace (Argentina's 2004 Academy Award entry for Best Foreign Film), conjours up an ensemble of engaging characters who pursue their humble dreams with gentle humour, irresistible passion and an infectious generosity of spirit.

MAKE ME KNOW
Israel, 2005, Beta SP, 30 minutes
Director: Yuval Simoni
Language:
Cast:
Winner of Tel Aviv University's International Student Film Festival for best Israeli film, Make Me Know is the story of twelve year old Eli who is faced with reading publicly from the Tora for the first time, but who has trouble deciphering a grocery list.

MAKTOB
Drama, Israel, 2004, Beta SP, 90 minutes
Director: Avi Mussel
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English Subtitles
Cast: Yuosef Sweid, Ayelet Zurer, Dani Shteg, Salwa Hadad Nakra
Ataf is a Druze police officer working a murder investigation. Michal is his Jewish girlfriend, also a police officer in his unit. During the course of the investigation Ataf has a series of unusual flashbacks that not only threaten his relationship, but also endanger his life. As Ataf tries to figure out the meaning behind these flashbacks, he begins to grasp one of the underlying concepts of Druze society. His journey brings him a better understanding of his Druze identity as well as bringing him closer to Michal, causing an unsurpassable internal conflict. Ataf continues his attempts to solve the murder case he's working on as well as navigate the complicated waters of family, politics and cultural identity. Maktob is a taut psychological and mystical thriller.

METALLIC BLUES
Comedy/Drama, Canada/Germany/Israel, 2004, 35mm, 90 minutes
Director: Dan Verete
Language: English/Hebrew/German with English Subtitles
Cast: Moshe Ivgy, Avi Kushner
A warm and engaging road-movie about two Israeli car dealers (played by popular Israeli actors, Avi Kushnir and Moshe Igvy) who buy a vintage American-made limousine hoping to get rich quick by selling it in Hamburg. When everything that could possibly go wrong, does, our heroes are faced with unexpected truths about friendship, reconciliation and the ghosts of Germany's dark past. This offbeat, largely comic treatment of present-day German/Jewish relations is carried off with great zest by the lead characters against the gritty backdrop of present day Hamburg. This film won Best Script and Best Actor (Moshe Igvy) Awards at 21st International Film Festival of Jerusalem.

MIXED BLESSINGS: THE CHALLENGES OF RAISING CHILDREN IN A JEWISH-CHRISTIAN FAMILY
Documentary, USA, 2004, Beta SP, 57 minutes
Director: Jennifer Kaplan
Language:
Cast:
Although interfaith marriage has been a topic of much concern for the Jewish community for several decades, no film has yet dealt with this issue quite the way Mixed Blessings does. What are the issues and long-term effects of Jewish-Christian inter-faith marriages? How do decisions get made regarding children?  What are the joys and frustrations of being in an inter-faith marriage? Through the personal stories of couples, testimonies from children, and advice from experts, Mixed Blessings aims to de-mystify the many religious, ethnic and personal issues associated with inter-faith marriages in a manner that is helpful, meaningful and visually compelling. Bring the whole family!

A panel discussion with Jennifer Kaplan, producer and director of the film, will follow. The panel will be moderated by Dr. Marilee Sigal a Marriage and Family therapist in private practice. She has written and taught in the area of cross-cultural marriage and has run intermarriage groups for many years. Marilee and Jennifer will be joined by two individuals who have personal experience in interfaith marriages and families.

NINA'S TRAGEDIES
Israel, 2003, 35mm, 106 minutes
Director: Savi Gavison
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast: Ayelet Zurer, Aviv Elkabeth, Yoram Hattab, Alon Abutbul
Death. Life. Love. Marriage. Divorce. Infatuation. Passion. Joy. Heartbreak. And dancing Hassids! Far from tragic, "Nina's Tragedies" is a serio-comic look at an Israeli teenager's coming-of-age and his crush on his beautiful but recently widowed and emotionally fragile Aunt Nina. Winner of 11 Israeli Academy prizes (including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay) as well as Best Film and Best Screenplay awards at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, "Nina's Tragedies" takes place over an intensely emotional six months in the life of 14 year-old Nadav. The film unfolds through a series of funny and touching journal entries in which Nadav reminisces about this turbulent period in his family's history--from his high-strung Uncle Haimon's untimely death to the passing of his estranged, deeply religious father, Amnon. By turns profound and whimsical, sexy and surprising, "Nina's Tragedies" is ultimately about unconditional acceptance--and the power of love to heal.

NOT IN MY NAME
Documentary, Canada, 2005, Beta SP, 100 minutes
Director: Igal Hecht
Language:
Cast:
Not In My Name takes a look at political activists of the Jewish Left in North America. This controversial documentary attempts to objectively and critically examine the growing number of Jews in North America that are opposed to the actions of the State of Israel. By asking tough questions of these individuals on their positions as apologists for moral equivalency, or about the need for the state of Israel, the filmmaker hopes to find a path of understanding amidst the propaganda and rhetoric with the ultimate hope of finding advocates for peace and the space to create a common ground.

ONLY HUMAN
Comedy, Spain/Argentina/Portugal/United Kingdom, 2004, 35mm, 93 minutes
Director: Dominic Harari and Teresa Pelegri
Language: Spanish with English Subtitles
Cast: Norma Aleandro, Guillermo Toledo, Maria Botto, Fernando Ramallo
A wonderfully twisted Spanish black comedy, Only Human, turns a dinner visit with the in-laws into a living nightmare, as a Jewish daughter brings home her fiancé to meet her dysfunctional family for the first time. Everything seems to be going smoothly, until the boyfriend, Rafi, reveals he is Palestinian. Troubles are compounded when a frozen block of soup goes flying out the seventh floor window with disastrous results. The tense family encounter quickly spirals out of control, thanks to a series of hilarious misunderstandings, and a zany cast of characters, including the caring but neurotic mother, a nymphomaniac sister and her bratty daughter, ultra-religious brother David, and a senile ex-Israeli solider, grandfather Dudu. Reminiscent of Billy Wilder, Only Human features a brilliantly written, rapid-fire script with all the fun you can pack into an hour and a half.

OUTSIDE CHANCE OF MAXIMILLIAN GLICK
Drama, Canada, 1988, 35mm, 97 minutes
Director: Allan Goldstein
Language:
Cast:
An engaging slice of Jewish-Canadian life. Set in small-town Manitoba during the 1950s, this adaptation of a Morley Torgov novel is about a young Jewish boy (Noam Zylberman), who is more interested in playing piano with a non-Jewish girl he has a crush on than he is in studying for his bar mitzvah. Everything changes, though, when a flamboyant new rabbi (Saul Rubinek) arrives in town. When The Outside Chance of Maximilian Glick was released in 1988, it was selected best Canadian film at the Toronto International Film Festival and most popular Canadian film at the Vancouver International Film Festival. It's a smart, entertaining movie for the entire family.

OY! IT'S A BOY!
Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 9 minutes
Director: Lenny Epstein
Language:
Cast:
Two families, one Jewish, one Catholic, welcome a baby boy into the fold with hilarious results.

POSTWOMAN
Drama, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 50 minutes
Director: Dina Zvi-Riklis
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast: Orly Zilberschatz-Banai, Moshe Ivgi
Levana is a lonely middle-age postwoman who lives with her ailing mother. When a new man moves in on her route, she takes a keen interest, learning more about him through his mail and fantasizing about their relationship. Jealousy gets the better of her and she intercepts a personal letter in a curious blue envelope. As it turns out, the letter is from a blind date and the woman is a literature teacher. Posing as the teacher, Levana begins spilling her true feelings out on the page. But the further they go, and the more enamored he becomes with the teacher, the harder it is for her to tell him who she really is.

REFLECTION
Canada, 2005, 35mm, 18 minutes
Director: Tony Dean Smith
Language:
Cast:
When a distraught father tries to let go of the past, an unusual event pulls him back into a world where reality and fantasy blur.

REUNION
Israel, 2005, Beta SP, 27 minutes
Director: Dov Gil-Har
Language:
Cast:
Reunited after four years, a group of young German and Israeli Professionals in media and politics meet to discuss an exchange program. Designed to confront misconceptions and reservations about each others cultures, and gain an enriched understanding, the participants speak on themes including perceptions of Israel through the media and the lasting effects of Germany's historical wrongs. In the words of one Jewish woman, "It changed my point of view on Israel. I think it was the first time I realized the emotional impact the past has on Israel"

SHALOM IRELAND
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 60 minutes
Director: Valerie Lapin Ganley
Language: English
Cast:
Shalom Ireland is a documentary about Ireland's remarkable, yet little known Jewish community. It chronicles the history of Irish Jewry while celebrating the unique culture created by blending Irish and Jewish traditions.  The Film features Rabbi Isaac Herzog who served as the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland and Israel and his son, Chaim Herzog who became President of Israel. From gun running for the IRA during Ireland's War of Independence to smuggling fellow Jews escaping from the Holocaust into Palestine, Shalom Ireland tells the untold story of how Irish Jews participated in the creation and development of both Ireland and Israel.

SHALOM JORDAN
Israel, 2004, Beta SP, 45 minutes
Director: Dov Gil-Har
Language: Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
On the tenth anniversary of the Israeli-Jordanian peace accord, Israeli filmmaker Dov Gil-Har (director of Behind Enemy Lines) reveals the story behind the secret negotiations which lead to the historic treaty. "Shalom Jordan" unveils the covert talks between Jordan's King Hussein and Israeli leaders since the early 1960's and their culmination in the historic accord sealed in 1994 on the banks of the Jordan river. Exclusive interviews with three former heads of the Mossad, a Prime Minister, statesmen, negotiators, experts and journalists reconstruct for the first time, the clandestine, fascinating and dramatic quest for peace.

SHEM
UK, 2004, 35mm, 90 minutes
Director: Caroline Roboh
Language:
Cast: Ash Newman, Hadassah Unger Diamant, Istvan Szabo, Arturro Brachetti
Daniel (Ash Newman, winner of the Best Actor award, New York Independent Film Festival), is an arrogant and restless young Londoner, bored with his meaningless life. Seeking sympathy from his Jewish grandmother, he finds himself being sent on a mission through Europe to find the grave of her father who disappeared during the Second World War. Following his great grandfather's trail, Daniel's journey leads him to Paris, Berlin, Prague, Budapest and Rome. As he sleeps his way across Europe (irresistible to both men and women) he is caught up in the turmoil of change taking place in the former Communist countries, and in the process of discovering his Jewish roots which had previously never mattered to him. What started as a simple excuse to travel and have fun soon becomes an obsessive quest and a journey of personal discovery.

SISTER ROSE'S PASSION
USA, 2004, Beta SP, 39 minutes
Director: Oren Jacoby
Language:
Cast:
Sister Rose tells the story of Sister Rose Thering, activist in the fight against anti-Semitism in the Catholic Church.  She had an active part in Vatican II, which led to many reforms in the Catholic Church, and was a strong component in denouncing Church doctrine which blamed the Jews for Jesus' death.  Winner of the Best Documentary Short Film at New York's Tribeca Film Festival and nominated for a 2005 Academy Award in the Documentary Short Subject, Sister Rose is a compelling and inspirational film about overcoming prejudice and fighting centuries old beliefs.

THE NAZI OFFICER'S WIFE
USA, 2004, Beta SP, 97 minutes
Director: Liz Garbus
Language:
Cast:
This documentary features the spellbinding story of a well-educated Jewish woman, Edith Hahn, who was torn from her family in Nazi-occupied Vienna to survive the Holocaust by assuming a false identity. Through bizarre circumstances she eventually became a German officer's wife. Hahn managed to live in Munich and later Brandenburg, even safely giving birth to her Jewish daughter in a Nazi hospital through sheer determination and luck. Narrated by Susan Sarandon and Julia Ormond, The Nazi Officer's Wife tells the captivating story that Hahn hid from everyone, even her family, for decades.

THE RITCHIE BOYS
Canada/German, 2004, 35mm, 93 minutes
Director: Christian Bauer
Language:
Cast:
The riveting untold story of a group of young men who fled Nazi Germany and returned to Europe as soldiers in U.S. uniforms. They knew the psychology and the language of the enemy better than anybody. In Camp Ritchie, Maryland, they were trained in intelligence and psychological warfare. Not always courageous, but determined, bright and inventive, they fought their own kind of war. They saved lives. They were victors, not victims. They were young and the world's most unlikely soldiers - with the greatest motivation to the fight this war: they were Jewish. They called themselves The Ritchie Boys. Tasked with devising ways to break the morale of the SS, these men are often credited with bringing an early end to the war. Some of these heroes, who are now in their eighties, are reunited in this fascinating documentary.

The Ritchie Boys was short-listed for the 2004 Grierson Award and for a 2005 Academy Award.

THE SYRIAN BRIDE
Comedy/Drama, France/Germany/Israel, 2004, 35mm, 97 minutes
Director: Eran Riklis
Language: English, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, French with English Subtitles
Cast: Hiyam Abbas, Makram Khoury, Clara Khoury, Ashraf Barhom
Winner of the prestigious Grand Prix of the Americas Award at the 2004 Montreal World Film Festival, The Syrian Bride was shot on location in the Golan Heights and is a compelling story about physical and emotional borders and the will it takes to cross them. Mona's wedding day is the saddest day of her life. She knows that once she crosses the border between Israel and Syria to marry a Syrian TV star, she will never again be allowed back to her beloved family in Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in the Golan Heights held by Israel since 1967. Soon the family will find themselves facing an uncertain future, trapped in a no-mans land between Israel and Syria. This Festival Opener is a compelling story that tackles a number of current themes including paternalism, feminism and the politics of a divided community.

THEN AND NOW: CHILDREN OF HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS SPEAK
Documentary, USA, 2004, Beta SP, 52 minutes
Director: Elise Berlin and Carol Christensen
Language:
Cast:
This film is an intimate look at the personal experiences of eight adult children of Holocaust survivors, all members of the Children of Holocaust Survivors group in Boulder, Colorado. The participants describe with a frankness rarely seen by the general public, the experience of being raised by Holocaust survivors and its effect on their childhoods and adult lives. Recorded during monthly group meetings and in personal interviews, Then and Now tells poignant stories of the hope and despair that are part of the everyday lives of those that have been raised in the shadow of the Holocaust. As they recount their experiences, members of the group describe how the trauma experienced by Holocaust survivors is passed down to the next generation. These portraits shed light on the intergenerational and lasting effects that the Holocaust continues to impart on current culture.

TURN LEFT AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Israel, France, 2004, Beta SP, 111 minutes
Director: Avi Nesher
Language: Hebrew, French, English with English Subtitles
Cast:
Turn Left at the End of the World takes us back to 1969 to a tiny isolated Israeli village on the edge of the Negev where two Jewish immigrant families, one from Morocco and the other from India become unlikely neighbours who share nothing but the dream of a new life. Obliged to live side by side, they become embroiled in a culture war trying to assert their cultural identities, the Indian family by putting together a cricket team, the Moroccan family by trying to disrupt the game. Meanwhile, each family has a teenage daughter negotiating the landscape of the sexual revolution. When the sultry Moroccan Nicole and the heady Indian Sara become friends, their youth and desire for freedom help them overcome their differences. In this isolated place, the road to harmony takes many surprising and comical twists and turns and is beautifully filmed against a desert background. This charming and sexy story is the highest-grossing Israeli film of the last decade and includes an international cast from France, India and Israel with standout performances by striking newcomers Liraz Charhi and Garti Netta.

WATERMARKS
Israel/France/USA, 2004, 35mm, 80 minutes
Director: Yaron Zilberman
Language: English/German/Hebrew with English Subtitles
Cast:
A story of  passion for life, sport and  friendship  experienced by the  champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah. Founded in  1909 in response to the banning of Jewish athletes in Austrian sports clubs. In the 1930s Hakoah's women swimmers dominated national competitions in Austria, but following the Anschluss the Nazis shut down the club. The swimmers managed to flee the country thanks to an escape operation organized by Hakoah's functionaries. Sixty-five years later the women's swim team are reunited in their old swimming pool in Vienna. Told by the swimmers, now in the ir eighties, Watermarks is about a group of young girls with a passion to be the best.

 

2004

These are the films that played during the 16th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.

A GROUP PORTRAIT WITH A WOMAN
Drama, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 85 minutes
Director: Itzhak Rubin
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
A unique film autobiography set against the backdrop of the Middle East Jewish-Arab conflict. The film is framed by documentary segments that feature the director introducing an unbelievable yet true story. A young Israeli woman falls in love with a Bedouin man. He becomes abusive and she flees the country without telling him that she has given up their baby for adoption. She struggles to maintain her own emotional well being despite a series of difficult relationships. A powerful story of one woman's struggle to survive in a man's world.

ALL I'VE GOT
Drama, Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 70 minutes
Director: Keren Margalit
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
A 72-year-old grandmother dies and finds herself on a ferry that will take her across the river to the hereafter. On the ferryboat she meets her first love who was killed in a road accident when they were young. She is presented with a fateful choice: to start life afresh as a 22-year-old-- her age at the time of the accident-- and to relinquish all her memories of the life she has lived with her husband and children; or to remain a 72-year-old woman with all her life's memories intact. If she chooses the second alternative she will get off the boat when it reaches its destination and will never be truly reunited with her beloved, who has been waiting for her on the ferryboat for fifty long years. A thoughtful and contemplative drama.

ALMOST PEACEFUL (Un Monde Presque Paisible)
Drama, France, 2002, 35mm, 93 minutes
Director: Michel Deville
Language: French with English subtitles
Cast: Simon Abkarian, Lubna Azabal, Zabou Breitman, Clotilde Courau, Vincent Elbaz, Julie Gayet, Stanislas Merhar, Denis Podalydes, Malik Zidi
Based on screenwriter Robert Bober's semi-autobiographical novel "Quoi de neuf sur la guerre?" Almost Peaceful is the portrait of a group of three women, three men, a teenage boy and a few children in a dressmaking workshop in the Jewish tailors' district of Paris in 1946. The war is over and they are trying to learn to live normal lives again. They avoid talking about the past; laughter and meticulous work, camaraderie, songs and certain silences are their way of keeping the tragedy at bay. With modesty and courage, they each find their way through the sorrow. Variety Magazine says "a film that audiences are certain to embrace once they discover it."

BEHIND ENEMY LINES
Documentary, Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 64 minutes
Director: Dov Gil-Har
Language: English, Hebrew, Arabic with English subtitles
Cast:
In the midst of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, two former friends and present-day enemies, embark on an emotional journey into Intifada-land, in search of the origins of the bloodshed. Benny Hernes, an Israeli police officer and Adnan Joulani, a Palestinian journalist spend a week travelling together through places that have become symbols of the dispute. Each has selected locations in attempt to convince the other of his own truth: the Jenin refugee camp, terror ridden Jerusalem, the disputed Temple Mount, the family of a suicide bomber and more. Adnan has experienced the death of his beloved cousin shot dead by an Israeli settler. Another cousin went on a shooting rampage in the heart of Tel Aviv. Benny, himself a settler, trains special Israeli forces to combat Palestinian militants. They first met over four years ago on a joint peace mission to Japan. While embracing the "Tokyo Spirit" of understanding, the two vowed to take home a message of peace. Soon after their return, the second Intifada erupted. Behind Enemy Lines is an emotional and dramatic quest through the milestones of the conflict. Despite the huge gap in their perspectives, Adnan and Benny try to find ways to communicate. Their success can serve as a single ray of hope in present pessimistic times.

BERLIN BESHERT
Short, Germany, 2002, Beta, 29 minutes
Director: November Wanderin
Language: German, Hebrew, English with English subtitles
Cast:
Kosher love in Berlin? The adventures of two sisters searching for soulmates in today's Berlin. Dahlia, a secular Berliner Jew is not concerned with finding a 'nice Jewish boy', while her religious lesbian sister Leah wants a kosher girlfriend. Meanwhile, it seems everyone from their mother to the local kosher shopkeeper wants to marry them off. Berlin Beshert humourously portrays the current life experiences of young Jews in Germany today.

CHRONICLE OF A JERUSALEM COURTYARD
Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 20 minutes
Director: Tsvika Nevo & Tom Barkay
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
The imminent destruction of an enchanting Jerusalem courtyard, built in the late 19th century, threatens the survival of its tenants' fragile mosaic. Located in the Nachlaot neighborhood, this courtyard is a microcosm of life in Jerusalem: a mélange of religions, ethnic communities and life styles. Zarifa and Cochava, two elderly Middle Eastern women, Kaisar, an Arab Christian man and Hanna, a German dancer live in close quarters in this walled courtyard. The looming demolition threatens the fabric of life in the courtyard and eventually brings this small Garden of Eden to an end.

DIVAN
Documentary, USA/Hungary/Ukraine/Israel, , Beta SP, 77 minutes
Director: Pearl Gluck
Language: Hungarian, Yiddish, English, with English subtitles
Cast:
As a teenager, filmmaker Pearl Gluck left her Orthodox Jewish clan in Brooklyn for secular life in Manhattan. Many years later, Pearl's father has one wish: that she marry and return to the community. Pearl, however, takes a more creative approach to mend the family breach. She travels to Hungary to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom: a couch upon which esteemed rabbis once slept. En route to the ancestral divan, Pearl encounters a colourful cast of characters who provide guidance and inspiration, including a couch exporter, her ex-communist cousin in Budapest, a pair of Hungarian-American matchmakers and a renegade group of formerly ultra-Orthodox Jews. Nimbly clever and intensely illuminating, DIVAN is a visual parable that offers the possibility of personal reinvention and cultural re-upholstery.

DZIGA AND HIS BROTHERS
Russia, 2002, Video, 52 minutes
Director: Yevgeni Tsymbal
Language: Russian with English subtitles
Cast:
This fascinating profile of the three Kaufman brothers, David, Moisey and Boris, uses wonderful archival footage to trace their roots from Jewish Bialystok to their triumphs in cinema history. David (DzigaVertov) is best known for Man With a Movie Camera and Boris won an Oscar for shooting On the Waterfront.

GOSSIP (Lashon harah)
Comedy, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 12 minutes
Director: Avi Youabian
Language:
Cast:
When Sophie, starts a spiteful rumour about the bride at a Jewish wedding, it spreads like wildfire from table to table, through all the generations, until finally reaching the bride. Sophie must then confront the bride and set things right.

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE PANTHERS?
Israel, 2002, Video, 65 minutes
Director:
Language: Hebrew (English translation)
Cast:
In 1970, a protest movement led by young, primarily Mizrachi, men from disadvantaged neighborhoods in Jerusalem burst into the public consciousness with its unusual and sometimes violent measures. They became known as the "Black Panthers". Nissim Mossek, then a novice television film-editor, enchanted by their enthusiasm, documented the group in a movie called "Have You Heard about the Panthers, Uncle Moshe?" Mysteriously, the film disappeared on route to a film festival and has only recently turned up. Using clips from his original film, this new documentary discusses the political movement as Mossek searches for the original Panthers.

HEBREW HAMMER
Comedy, USA, 2003, 35mm, 86 minutes
Director: Jonathan Kesselman
Language: English
Cast: Adam Goldberg (Saving Private Ryan), Judy Greer (Adaptation), Andy Dick (NewsRadio), Mario Van Peebles (Ali), Peter Coyote (Random Hearts, E.T.), Sean Whalen (Charlie's Angels), Tony Cox (Willow), Nora Dunn (Saturday Night Live)
A Jewxploitation spoof in the vein of "Shaft" and "Austin Powers". Mordechai (Goldberg), a bad-ass Orthodox Jew, is enlisted by the Jewish Justice League when it discovers that Santa's psychotic son (Andy Dick) has plans to eradicate Hanukkah as part of a nefarious scheme to be the only holiday icon at winter time. The Hammer joins forces with Esther (Greer), the gorgeous and dangerous daughter of the world's top Jewish leader, and his friend Mohammed (Mario Van Peebles), head of the Kwanzaa Liberation Front, to topple the evil Santa and save Hanukkah for future generations.

HIDING AND SEEKING: FAITH AND TOLERANCE AFTER THE HOLOCAUST
USA, 2004, DigiBeta, 85 Minutes
Director: Menachem Daum and Oren Rudavsky
Language: English, Yiddish and Polish with English subtitles
Cast:
Hiding and Seeking tells the story of a father who tries to alert his adult Orthodox Jewish sons, whose views have shifted considerably from his own, to the dangers of insularity and intolerance of those outside the faith. He takes them on a highly charged emotional journey to Poland; to his sons, this is a country whose people are incurably anti-Semitic and beyond redemption. It is precisely here that he introduces them to Poles who personify the highest levels of exemplary behavior. The highlight of their journey comes when they manage to track down the Polish farm family who risked their lives to hide the sons? grandfather for more than two years during the Holocaust.

HORA
Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 25 minutes
Director: Avner Levona
Language: English and Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
The story of the Hora dance. Early Zionists keen to develop a unique Israeli culture introduced the hora. In many ways, the dance can be seen as a metaphor for Israeli society.

JAMES' JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM
Drama, Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 87 minutes
Director: Ra'anan Alexandrowicz
Language: Hebrew, English, Zulu with English subtitles
Cast: Siyabonga Melongisi Shibe, Arie Elias, Salim Daw
A cannily droll mix of social commentary and modern fable, Israeli filmmaker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz's (THE INNER TOUR) debut feature follows the adventures of young James, a devout wide-eyed Christian attempting a pilgrimage from his African village to the Holy Land. Jailed by the immigration authorities upon his arrival in Tel Aviv, this contemporary Candide is miraculously bailed out by a shady small-time businessman only to become part of his migrant labour pool. Alexandrowicz filters an astute exploration of the economic, moral and spiritual hypocrisies of Western society through an evocative portrait of modern Israel's cultural and generational divisions.

JOSHUA THEN AND NOW
Canada, 1985, 16mm, 119 minutes
Director: Ted Kotcheff
Language: English
Cast:
Based on Mordecai Richler's semi-autobiographical novel, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, the film stars James Woods as a Jewish-Canadian sportswriter, detailing his life from his early days to his marriage to a senator's daughter, and his attempt at becoming a celebrity. This funny and poignant film paints a realistic portrait of growing up Jewish in Montreal.

JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM (Patuvane kam Erusalim)
Drama, Bulgaria, 2003, , 112 minutes
Director: Ivan Nichev (After the End of the World -- 14th VJFF)
Language: German, Bulgarian with English subtitles
Cast:
The year is 1942. Elza and David are two German-Jewish siblings fleeing the horrors of Hitler's Holocaust with their uncle. They get as far as Sofia, Bulgaria where their adult protector dies. Stranded, penniless and alone in a country whose language they don't understand, the two children are "adopted" by a trio of vaudevillians who tour the small towns of the Bulgarian countryside with a threadbare magic show. It will take all the tricks and talents these illusionists can muster to pull off the ultimate disappearing act: get the children safely to Jerusalem. JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM shows the difference ordinary citizens can make in the face of tyranny. Director Ivan Nichev states his feature is based on a true story, and offers it in tribute to the Righteous Gentiles who helped save 50,000 Bulgarian Jews.

LAUGHTER ON THE 23RD FLOOR
USA, 2002, Video, 102 minutes
Director: Richard Benjamin
Language:
Cast: Nathan Lane (Birdcage), Mark Linn-Baker (My Favorite Year)
Taken from Neil Simon's semi-autobiographical play, concerning his experiences as a young TV writer working for Sid Caesar in the heyday of live comedy television. Director Richard Benjamin does a great job with an exceptional ensemble cast that includes Nathan Lane and Mark Linn-Baker. The rest of the cast includes Saul Rubinek, Dan Castellaneta, Richard Portnow, Mackenzie Astin, and Peri Gilpin (just to name a few). The comic timing is sheer perfection, and the drama never seem forced or phony. It's a crazy, manic film that just makes you want to lean back and smile ear to ear.

LOOKING FOR VICTORIA
Documentary, Netherlands, 2004, Beta SP, 58 minutes
Director: Ton Vriens (To Live with Terror)
Language: English, Spanish with English subtitles
Cast:
Adriana Lewi was eighteen months old when she and her parents were kidnapped by the Argentine military. Adriana never saw her parents again. During the military dictatorship in Argentina-- from 1976 till 1983 --about 30,000 citizens disappeared, including 2,000 Argentine Jews-- a disproportionate number. Adriana's father was Jewish, her mother Catholic-- and the dictatorship persecuted Jews. Adriana was raised by her Catholic grandparents. They blamed their daughter's death on their son-in-law's involvement with the radical left. Adriana wants to know what actually happened to her parents-- especially now that she has a son the same age she was when she was kidnapped.

MANHOOD
Drama, USA, 2003, 35mm, 82 minutes
Director: Bobby Roth
Language: English
Cast: Nestor Carbonell (The Tick), John Ritter (8 Simple Rules), Janeane Garafolo (The Cable Guy), Bonnie Bedelia (Die Hard)
In this mature, dark comedy, Bobby Roth looks at several generations of American Jewish men embroiled in a family crisis. Jack (Carbonell) is asked to temporarily care for his teen nephew when his sister (Garafalo) leaves her husband, Eli (Ritter). Eli has no intentions of going quietly, also turning to Jack for help. Jack soon finds himself a voice of calm reason, as things seem to go from bad to worse all around him. Roth astutely probes a range of male behaviour that bounces from comic to deeply disturbing. In one of his last roles, John Ritter gives a brilliant performance as the deeply disturbed Eli. This film is not suitable for young audiences.

MERMAIDS
Comedy, USA, 1990, ,
Director: Richard Benjamin
Language:
Cast:
MERMAIDS is the story of the turbulent relationship between a flamboyant, outrageous mom (Cher) and her two daughters (Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci) who just want a normal, stable life. Socially rebellious and provocative, the mother is reluctant to settle down, even at the request of her two daughters (one of whom, despite being Jewish, longs to enter a convent). The unusual family has moved 18 times in the last 15 years, usually whenever Mrs. Flax senses she might have to commit to a relationship. But this time the girls hope the family will stay put, and their conflicting desires lead to a final, near-tragic result.

MIKE BRANT -- LAISSE MOI T'AIMER
Documentary, Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 102 minutes
Director: Erez Laufer
Language: French and Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
Mike Brant was found on the sidewalk of Rue Erlanger in Paris' 16th Arrondissement on Friday morning, April 25, 1975. He was 28 at the time of his death. The police inquiry started and ended the same day. Their conclusion was unequivocal and precise: suicide. Mike was at the peak of his career, his records sold by the millions all over Europe. What would cause him to jump to his death? The film includes original performances, songs and interviews by Mike Brant never seen before in France and Israel.

MISS ENTEBBE
Drama, Israel, 2003, 35mm, 75 minutes
Director: Omri Levy
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
Cast:
Jerusalem, July 1976. The summer holidays have just begun when the lives of neighbouring twelve-year-olds Noa Yoav and Danny are turned upside down. A plane flying to France-- upon which Danny's mother is a passenger --has been captured by terrorists and taken to Entebbe, Uganda. Noa is convinced she can free her friend's mom by kidnapping an Arab boy and demanding her return. She soon becomes involved in a dangerous adventure that quickly develops a life of its own, and turns deadly serious.

MOMENTS ISRAEL 2002
Israel, 2002, Beta SP, 56 minutes
Director: various
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
17 short films on the "Situation" (3-3:30 min each) by some of Israel's best directors. This great variety is somehow a faithful reflection of the sometimes-unbearable complexity of feelings and interpretations of Israel's present reality 72 Virgins; Director: Uri Bar-On Crazy; Director: Uri Barbash For Yotam; Director: Eyal Halfon From Now to Now; Director: "At Yosi's," David Perlov Kheira's Smile; Director: Ariella Azoully Longing; Director: Dina Zvi Riklis Mouth of the Abyss; Director: Shlomit Altman, Oded Davidoff Nira and Sausan - Mothers; Director: Nira Sherman, Sausan Quoud Saturday in Jenin; Director: Anat Even Security Groove; Director: Idan Alterman Status Quo; Director: Gur Bentvich, Nir Miterraso Survival and the Art of the Joystick; Director: Tsipi Houri That's The Situation; Director: Rafi Bukaee The Journey; Director: Eyal Zaid Three Minutes to Four; Director: Eliav Lilti Times Are Bad; Director: Amos Gitai You for Your Mother; Director: Thaer Zoabi

MOVING HEAVEN AND EARTH
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 43 minutes
Director: Debra Gonsher Vinik and David Vinik
Language: English
Cast:
In 1919, following the guidance of their leader, a local governor named Semei Kakungulu, the Ugandan Abayudaya adopted all the observances of Judaism including circumcision at birth. In the 1970s, even in the face of rampant anti-Semitism under the reign of Idi Amin exemplified by torture and murder, many of the tribe held fast to Jewish practice and beliefs. In the 1980s with the help of the outside Jewish community from Israel and the United States, a number of small synagogues were built and a Torah donated. Today the Abayudaya keep kosher according to Talmudic Law, attend to the Jewish calendar of holidays and study the week's parshah. At the beginning of February of 2002, a Beit Din made up of three rabbis from the United States (Rabbi Howard Gorin, Rabbi Scott Glass & Rabbi Joseph Prouser) and one from Israel (Rabbi Andrew Sacks) along with rabbinical student Moshe Cotel went to this community in Uganda. There, over a period of six days, they converted over 300 Abayudaya, welcoming them into the community of world Jewry. An inspiring documentary on the complicated nature of Jewish identity.

MY ARCHITECT
Documentary, USA, 2003, 35mm, 116 minutes
Director: Nathaniel Kahn
Language: English
Cast:
In 1974, Louis Kahn was found dead-- alone, bankrupt, and unidentified --in the men's room at Penn Station. A Jewish immigrant who overcame poverty and the effects of a devastating childhood accident, Kahn created a handful of intensely powerful and spiritual buildings-- geometric compositions of brick, concrete and light --which, in the words of one critic, "change your life." While Kahn's artistic legacy was an uncompromising search for truth and clarity, his personal life was filled with secrets and chaos. He left behind three families-- one with his wife of many years and two with women with whom he'd had long-term affairs. In MY ARCHITECT, the child of one of these extra-marital relationships, Kahn's only son Nathaniel, sets out on an epic journey to reconcile the life and work of this mysterious, contradictory man. In a documentary with the emotional impact of a dramatic feature film (including an original orchestral score), Nathaniel's personal journey becomes a universal investigation of identity, a celebration of art and, ultimately, of life itself.

MY BROTHER'S WEDDING
USA, 2003, Beta SP, 36 minutes
Director: Dan Akiba
Language:
Cast:
When Boston director Daniel Akiba's brother Jonah travelled to Israel, his mother's parting words to her son were, "Have a good time, but whatever you do, don t become Orthodox." Three months later he called his mother and said, "The Torah is the word of G-d." This award-winning film documents the family s trip to Israel in 2001 to attend Jonah's wedding and explores how his embrace of Orthodox Judaism has affected them all.

MY FAVORITE YEAR
USA, 1982, Video, 92 minutes
Director: Richard Benjamin
Language: English
Cast: Peter O Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Lanie Kazan, Jessica Harper
The year is 1954, and dashing Alan Swann, an alcoholic, swashbuckling movie star, is about to make his first television appearance, on "The Comedy Cavalcade" (a brilliant take-off on Sid Caesar's "Your Show of Shows"). Fearing Swann will make a drunken fool of himself on live TV, the producers ask Benji Stone, one of the show's youthful writers, to watch and babysit Swann for the few days prior to his stint on the show. The unlikely duo experience numerous adventures together (such as a dinner with Benjy's star-struck relatives) and form a lasting bond in the process. Benjamin's directorial debut. Recently adapted for Broadway with Lanie Kazan.

NO. 17
Documentary, Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 75 minutes
Director: David Ofek
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
In June 2002, a bus on its way from Tel Aviv to Tiberius, was bombed. 17 people were killed, 16 were identified. No. 17 wasn't. He was buried a few weeks later, anonymous. The police stopped searching, believing that he must have been a foreign worker. This is where the filmmakers step in, documenting over a period of six months the search for the identity of a man no one claimed was missing. The film takes the form of a detective investigation, but also pursues the stories of several people who were affected directly or indirectly by this bombing, creating a tragic-comic portrait of a society living under the shadow of death. When it seems that the investigation has reached a dead end a vague lead appears....

PAPER SNOW
Drama, Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 98 minutes
Director: Lina & Slava Chaplin (Trumpet in the Wadi)
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
In pre-independence Palestine, Tel Aviv has become a bustling cultural center, attracting the immigrant bohemians who begin gathering in the few new local cafés. The various circles of artists struggle to create a renewed Hebrew culture of their own. Hanna Rovina, a charismatic theatre actress, known as "Queen of the Jews" reigns supreme in the national theatre. She meets and falls madly in love with Alexander Penn a controversial poet, anarchist and drunkard. Their passionate, sensational love affair flourishes but even this great love cannot withstand the growing gap between two artistic egos. As love turns to torment, their relationship self-destructs, leaving them both to pick up the pieces on their own.

PERLASCA: An Italian Hero
Drama, Italy, 2002, Beta SP, 126 minutes
Director: Alberto Negrin
Language: Italian with English subtitles
Cast:
An Italian Schindler, Giorgio Perlasca became consumed by a sense of humanitarian duty after witnessing the persecution of Jews in Budapest. Passing himself off as Spanish Consul, he deceived the Nazis in a series of ingenious capers and succeeded in saving more than 5,000 Hungarian Jews. An extraordinary story of a hero, forgotten for nearly a half century.

PURIM SAFARI
South Africa, 2003, Beta SP, 47 minutes
Director: Romi Kaplan
Language: English
Cast:
Arriving in South Africa as part of his book on Jews in the Diaspora, Frederic Brenner, French photographer, cajoles and coerces his subjects into moments of self-disclosure and then into posing for his photographs in various bizarre contexts. The film questions Brenner s motives as he sets out to prove his claim that Jews have chosen to be white and Western. Both notions are visually denoted by Brenner as forms of disguise; the title of the film refers to the Jewish festival of Purim, which is commemorated by the donning of costumes. The film accompanies Brenner on his trip around South Africa meeting a diversity of characters-- performance artist Steven Cohen and his acts of public humiliation, Albie Sachs, a former freedom fighter and now judge of the constitutional court of the New South Africa, and musician Jonny Clegg, who crossed cultural by performing African music in the Zulu language.

ROSENSTRASSE
Drama, Germany/Netherlands, 2003, 35mm, 136 minutes
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Language: English and German with English subtitles
Cast: Katja Riemann, Maria Schrader (Aimee und Jaguar), Jürgen Vogel
Margarethe von Trotta found the inspiration for her deeply affecting ROSENSTRASSE in a little-known event in German history. Jewish husbands of Aryan wives were protected from deportation to concentration camps, however, during the final roundup of mid-winter 1943, many of these protected Jews were suddenly taken to a detention centre on the Rosenstrasse, a street in Berlin. Over the course of a two-week protest, their wives would stare down the SS and, indeed, the Third Reich itself. Von Trotta uses these events to tell a powerful and, at times, tearful story that spans sixty years of history and touches on three generations. Using a structure in which events of the present open avenues to the past, von Trotta and her singular, virtually all-woman cast weave a highly emotional story that not only deals with the harsh realities of the period, but manages to find hope and life amid horror and death. Courtesy of Toronto Film Festival, 2003.

SECRET LIVES: Hidden Children & Their Rescuers During WW II
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 72 minutes
Director: Aviva Slesin
Language: English
Cast:
SECRET LIVES tells the story of the individuals who, wherever the Nazis were in power, reacted with defiance and humanity-- the people who simply could not stand by while children were willfully and brutally murdered. Rescuers came from all walks of life. Some were Communists, some hated the Germans, and some were religious Christians who believed it was their duty to save a life. They were not always the most upstanding members of society: criminals, prostitutes, and even anti-Semites rescued children. Why they acted remains a mystery. SECRET LIVES reunites children and rescuers from France, Belgium, Holland, Lithuania, and Poland and gives equal weight to the actions of non-Jewish rescuers and the experiences of the Jewish children they hid. The film uses only first-hand testimony of hidden children, parents and rescuers, many of whom are now historians, professors, writers, and psychologists. Directed and narrated by Academy Award winner Aviva Slesin, herself a former hidden child.

SECRET PASSAGE
Drama, UK/Luxembourg, , 35mm, 100 minutes
Director: Ademir Kenovic
Language: English
Cast: Katherine Borowitz (The Man Who Wasn't There), Tara FitzGerald, John Turturro (Mo' Better Blues), Hannah Taylor Gordon
The Inquisition of 1492 forces Jewish sisters Isabel and Clara to flee Spain for Holland. When Clara's husband is killed helping other Jews escape the Inquisition, the sisters flee again, this time to Venice. There, Isabel negotiates their final escape with the Turks, who agree to give the family safe passage to Turkey if Isabel uncovers and hands over the secrets of Venetian glassmaking. This striking period piece features Katherine Borowitz (Internal Affairs, The Man Who Wasn't There) as Isabel, John Turturro (Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?) as Paolo Zane, Tara Fitzgerald as Clara, and Hannah Taylor Gordon (Anne Frank: The Whole Story) as Clara's daughter, Victoria.

SHABAT
Russia, 1991, 35mm, 30 minutes
Director: Gulbahor Mirzoeva
Language: Russian with English subtitles
Cast:
A wonderful, nostalgic portrait of a Bukharan Jewish family about to depart to Israel.

SUNSHINE BOYS
Comedy, USA, 1975, Video, 111 minutes
Director: Herbert Ross
Language: English
Cast: Walter Matthau, George Burns and Richard Benjamin
When ABC decides to do a special on the history of comedy, they call on the famous vaudeville team of Lewis & Clark. However, the two aging comedy stars haven't spoken in years and must be persuaded to work together. Clark (Matthau) is a diehard New Yorker who lives and breathes show business. The stubborn and slovenly actor still auditions for work with the help of his persistent nephew turned agent, Ben (Richard Benjamin). Lewis (Burns) walked out on the team's final show to retire and move to New Jersey with his wife and kids, much to the chagrin of his show-loving partner. The two eccentric characters are complete opposites who worked together as a comic powerhouse in the past, known in their heyday as the Sunshine Boys. Ben attempts to do everything in his power to get the cantankerous team to put on one last show. Reminiscent of THE ODD COUPLE, THE SUNSHINE BOYS is a film to treasure.

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE
Documentary, Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 67 minutes
Director: Igal Hecht
Language: English, Hebrew, Russian with English subtitles
Cast:
The Chosen People introduces the audience to one of the most controversial movements today, Messianic Judaism. The Messianic Jewish movement has grown in recent years; they have over 100 synagogues in Israel and thousands across Europe and North America. Their belief is that Jews should accept Yeshua (Jesus) as the Messiah, and that Orthodox Judaism and branches that stem from it, are practicing false Judaism. Through interviews with members of the movement and individuals countering what they believe is a Christian conspiracy, they continue in their efforts to commit a spiritual holocaust on the Jewish people. The documentary was filmed in Canada, Israel, and Hungary.

THE DANISH SOLUTION
Documentary, USA, 2003, Beta SP, 58 minutes
Director: Karen Cantor and Camilla Kjærulff
Language: English
Cast:
Sixty years ago the Final Solution was attempted in Denmark. The plan was averted and over 95 percent of the country's Jewish population survived the war. How and why Jews escaped the Nazis blueprint for their extermination is the subject of this compelling new documentary film. Through the very human testimony of survivors, the story of the Danish rescue is told with clarity, empathy and humor. Because what happened in Denmark has taken on legendary proportions, the filmmakers have carefully researched the subject, separating the truths from the myths such as that of the Danish King wearing the Yellow Star. In addition to the survivors' stories, the filmmakers have interviewed rescuers and scholars.

THE FIRST ISRAELI IN SPACE
Documentary, Israel, 2003, , 70 minutes
Director: Neil Weisbrod
Language: Hebrew, English with English subtitles
Cast:
The First Israeli in Space follows the footsteps of Ilan Ramon, Israel's first astronaut, from the beginning of his training until his untimely death when the Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas. Ilan was one of the seven-person crew on the ill-fated flight STS-107, a 16-day scientific mission that ended in tragedy sixteen minutes before it was scheduled to land. For more than four years a film crew from Israel's Public Television Station, headed by director Neil Weisbrod, documented the long road that led Ilan, a veteran F-16 pilot in Israel's Air Force, to NASA's Astronaut Training Facility in Houston and to the Launch Pad in Florida. This film is dedicated to the memory of the seven-crew members of the Columbia Space Shuttle that crashed to earth on February 1st, 2003.

THE LAST SEPHARDIC JEW (El último Sefaradí)
Documentary, Spain, 2003, Video, 90 minutes
Director: Miguel Angel Nieto
Language: Ladino, Hebrew with English subtitles
Cast:
A young Rabbi, who teaches Ladino (Sephardic Spanish) in Israel undertakes a journey that will take him back through history from Thessalonika, the so called Jewish Republic, to Sarajevo, Curacao, Istanbul and finally Toledo, Spain. He brings with him the mythical key that the Jews took with them when they left Spain in order to return to their homes. There he attempts to better understand, why, in the year 1492, did Spain decide to bring to an end multi-religious and multicultural harmony?

THE LIGHT AHEAD (Fishke Der Krumer)
Drama, USA, 1939, B&W, 35mm, 94 minutes
Director: Edgar G. Ulmer
Language: Yiddish with English subtitles
Cast: Isidor Casher, Helen Beverly, David Opatoshu (Exodus)
Impoverished and disabled lovers Fishke and Hodel dream of life in the big city of Odessa, free from the poverty and stifling old-world prejudices of the shtetl. The benevolent and enlightened bookseller Mendele helps them, turning small-town superstitions to their advantage. Based on Mendele Mokher Seforim s story of love frustrated by small-town ignorance, this luminous allegory of escape marries Edgar Ulmer's masterful direction with superb acting by members of New York s Artef and Yiddish Art Theaters. "Beverly and Opatoshu are perhaps the most beautiful couple in the history of Yiddish cinema, and their scenes have a touching erotic chemistry." --J. Hoberman, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds.

THE MAN WHO LOVED HAUGESUND
Documentary, Norway, 2003, Beta SP, 59 minutes
Director: Jon Haukeland and Tore Vollan
Language: Norwegian with English subtitiles
Cast:
A fascinating examination of the life of Polish Jew Moritz Rabinowitz, who came to Norway in 1911 and built a clothing empire from nothing. Regardless of his efforts and success, he remained an outsider in the town. Before the war, he was an outspoken fighter against Nazism and was the first person the Germans wanted during the occupation. Oblivious to their own latent anti-Semitism, to this day there are those in Haugesund that claim that it was his own greed that led to his capture. Using archival film and witness interviews, the truth is revealed.

THE PROVIDER
Canada, 2004, Beta SP, 30 minutes
Director: Robert Swartz
Language: English
Cast:
A lyrical portrait of Marvin Swartz, a prolific abstract artist who died tragically in a car accident. Seventeen years later, Swartz's son, the filmmaker, who survived the accident, searches for his lost father through the powerful images of the works that were left behind. Weaving together interviews, super-8 movies, photographs and a vast array of artwork, the film creates a visually layered narrative that reflects Marvin's complex and dualistic life.

THE RASHEVSKI TANGO (Le Tango des Rashevski)
France/Belgium, 2001, 35mm, 100 minutes
Director: Sam Gabarski
Language: French with English Subtitles
Cast: Ludmila Mikael, Hippolyte Girardot, Michel Jonasz, Daniel Mesguish
The death of the family matriarch, Rosa, is the catalyst for a series of comic vignettes in this box-office smash from France. Rosa has been defiantly secular her whole life, shunning rabbis and synagogues. But, when she dies, her family discovers that she had purchased a plot in the Jewish section of the cemetery. Confused and upset, they must put aside differences to see to Rosa's burial. As they come together, the Rashevskis begin to raise questions about their own Jewish identities and how much religiosity they're willing and able to incorporate into their lives.

THE REAL OLD TESTAMENT
Comedy, USA, 2002, Beta SP, 85 minutes
Director: Curtis and Paul Hannum
Language:
Cast:
The Real Old Testament is a parody of the first reality show, MTV's "The Real World" except in this version it's God, Adam and Eve and a host of other characters from the Book of Genesis who've agreed to have their lives videotaped. Five stories from the Bible are presented matter-of-factly by a gifted set of comedic improvisers. They act out actual Scripture with their own imaginings of what might have been said. Irreverent, yes, but very funny!

TWO MINUTES FROM FARADIS
Israel, 2003, Beta SP, 50 minutes
Director: Daniel Syrkin
Language:
Cast:
A satiric look at the Israeli-Arab conflict. A precocious Israeli teenage girl tries unsuccessfully to rebel against her ultra-liberal parents. Just as she's about to give up, she meets the son of the family maid, an Arab hunk and discovers a perfect way to get at her parents. The film takes a fresh and comic look at suspicion and prejudice on both sides.

WONDROUS OBLIVION
Drama, UK, 2002, 35mm, 106 minutes
Director: Paul Morrison
Language: English
Cast: Delroy Lindo (Romeo Must Die), Emily Woof (The Full Monty), Stanley Townsend, Sam Smith (Oliver Twist)
11-year-old David Wiseman is fanatical about cricket. It's doubly odd, given that he's both hopeless at it and the son of European Jewish refugees who don't share his enthusiasm for the sport. When the Samuels family from Jamaica move in next door and build a cricket net in their back garden he couldn't be happier especially when Mr. Samuels agrees to coach him. David gets on the school team and becomes popular with his peers and all seems well. But, with racist neighbours all around, David's Wondrous Oblivion cannot last much longer. The Vancouver Jewish Film Festival was proud to have the Canadian Premiere of Paul Morrison's first film, Solomon and Gaenor, back in 1999. His latest effort is a not-to-be missed charmer.

 

2003

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 ISSAC (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.

 

2002 

These are the films that played during the 14th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.

A BOMB IN THE BASEMENT - ISRAEL'S NUCLEAR OPTION
Northwest Premiere
Documentary, Israel, 2001, video, 79 minutes
Director: Michael Karpin
Hebrew, French w/English subtitles
A Bomb in the Basement is the first documentary film to tell the story of the development of the Israeli nuclear option. It focuses on the cooperation between France and Israel to build an Israeli nuclear option, and the American administrations unsuccessful attempts to stop Israel from building the bomb. The nuclear project was the most complex, costly and secret ever carried out by Israel. Israels creator, David Ben-Gurion, first began to contemplate Israels ultimate deterrent in the early years of statehood. The lessons of the Holocaust and fears for Israels survival persuaded Ben- Gurion that the state must have a defensive measure in the form of the ultimate deterrent as life insurance for the country.
"The film ... strings together details that have mostly been published before outside Israel and includes a riveting interview with Peres...Broadcast on Israeli television, it marks the first time the electronic media here have dealt with the issue candidly and comprehensively...." - Dan Ephron, Boston Globe

A BRIDGE OF BOOKS
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 13 min
Director: Sam Ball
English
Opened in 1997, the headquarters of the National Yiddish Book Center is a lebedike velt a lively world full of books, people, programs and exhibitions. The Center was founded in 1980 when current President Aaron Lansky discovered thousands of of priceless Yiddish books - books that had survived Hitler and Stalin - were being discarded and destroyed. Since then, the Center has recovered over 1.5 million Yiddish books, with the number growing every day. Director Sam Ball takes us on a fascinating tour of what has been called "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history."

A DREAM OF MOTHER
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 27 min
Director: Chava Schein (Hadassah College)
Hebrew and Ethiopian w/English subtitles
A Dream of Mother is the story of Dasesh, a 19-year-old Ethiopian girl living in Israel with her father and stepmother. For five years since their separation, Dasesh has been dreaming of the arrival of her biological mother from Ethiopia and is anxious to be re-united with her. When she finally arrives, Dasesh finds her and her mother's worlds are vastly different.

A MATCH MADE IN SEVEN
World Premiere
Documentary, Canada, 2002, video, 46 min
Director: Ilan Saragosti
English
This fast-paced documentary centres on Vancouvers first-ever SpeedDating event, the adrenaline-pumped seven-minute matchmaking game that has taken the Jewish world by storm. Four young Jews two men and two women between the ages of 30-35 bring us into the main event for a truly voyeuristic dating experience. In the weeks leading up to the SpeedDating, we follow their intense search for a Jewish partner, and track their results after the big event.

ALOIS BRUNNER: THE LAST NAZI
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 60 min
Director: Monika Koplow
English
Narrated by Jay Bushinsky
Alois Brunner is the most notorious Nazi war criminal still alive! On March 2, 2001, he was tried and convicted in absentia in Paris, France, for crimes against humanity. Brunner is responsible for the deaths of more than 128,000 European Jews, and 200 Americans, whom he sent to death camps all across Europe during World War II. Alois Brunner has been living in Syria since 1959, where he has been advising the various governments in Damascus on intelligence matters. Alois Brunner: The Last Nazi tells the story of how Alois Brunner escaped justice, who protected him, and why.

BIRTHRIGHT ISRAEL
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 44 min
Director: Leonard Pearl/Rena Godfrey/Isaac Szpindel
English
In an unprecedented effort to stem the tide of assimilation and reconnect young Jewish people to their heritage, the birthright Israel program was initiated by North American philanthropists, Charles Bronfman and Michael Steinhardt, and Jewish communities worldwide. Birthright Israel offers Jewish young adults between the ages of 18-26 who have never been to Israel, a free 10-day trip to that country. Participants come from all over the world and from a wide range of religious and cultural Jewish backgrounds. Birthright Israel focuses on the Canadian participants in this trip. In 2000 and 2001 more than two thousand Jewish young adults from across Canada traveled to Israel to participate in the program. This documentary captures their life-changing experiences, gained friendships and spiritual epiphanies encountered by the participants as they reconnect to their culture, people and religion.

CAFÉ NOAH
Documentary, Israel, 1996, video, 26 min
Director: Duki Dror
Hebrew and Arabic w/ English subtitles
After its independence in 1948, Jewish musicians from Baghdad and Cairo have immigrated to Israel. They were masters in Arabic music, but their music was not valued in the new homeland. The Arab-Israeli war was conflicting with their cultural identity as Arab-Jews. Cafe Noah was the one place were their music continued.

CASE OF JONATHAN POLLARD, THE
World Premiere
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 78 min
Director: Eran Preis
English
The Case of Jonathan Pollard depicts a complex and controversial man - imprisoned spy Jonathan Pollard - who broke the law of his country in order to obey his personal moral code, and ended up trapped in a web of betrayals. It follows the story of his spying, arrest, sentencing for life, the harshness of prison life, the struggle to free him, his alienation from his family and supporters. Keeping an intimate and personal perspective on the man who is often regarded as a hero or as a self-righteous traitor, the film strives to understand Pollards character, idealism and motivation, and on the impact of his act. The documentary re-constructs the case and Pollards personal history, character, motivations and evolution, through interviews with family members, friends, activists, journalists, experts and government representatives. Archival material of media interviews and relevant events and verité-style footage of rallies complement the information. The artistic dimension is built on re-enactment footage by an actor and on expressive and abstract visuals.

COHEN'S WIFE
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 24 min
Director: Nava Heifetz (Ma'ale School)
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Rivki Cohen, a young ultra-orthodox woman, opens the door to a strange man seeking Tsedaka. She is raped. Now she is awaiting the Rabbinical Court's decision to see whether her husband, Motle, must divorce her since according to the Jewish Halacha, Cohen's wife, who was raped, is henceforth forbidden to her husband.

COMPANY JASMINE
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 56 min
Director: Yael Katzir
Hebrew w/English subtitles
In recent years, the IDF has started to include women in positions that were previously the sole domain of male soldiers. The success of the women in these positions resulted in the opening of a course for women officers. It is a prestigious and difficult course  for a new generation of energetic, beautiful, and motivated women. These cadets must contend with the desire to be the equals of men, and deal with significant questions: their identity, in their own eyes and in those of society; femininity and the military; battle-readiness and command. This is the story of Company Jasmine, which focuses on five cadets: Tal, Efrat, Yafit, Noa and Sivan, and their commanding officer, Rotem. The film accompanies the cadets throughout their 17-week course on exercise, orientation, on the shooting range; command exercises and show s how these women must cope with high pressure within a competitive framework. It explores their need to support and assist each other, accept discipline and authority, face fears of being demoted along with their moments of relaxation and on leave. Documentary filmmaker Yael Katzir is a former office in the Israel Defense Forces. All the women who worked on the production and post-production of this film have served in the IDF. "Why did i have tears in my eyes at the end of the film It shows what women can do and how much things have changed since my generation was in service" - Mrs. Leah Rabin "Fascinating and deeply moving. A very important film. It speaks the voice of many women"  - Dr. Sylvia Bijaui, Gender Studies, Tel Aviv University, Israel.

COWBOY, THE
USA, 1968, 16mm, 12 minutes
Director: Abe Wexler
Yiddish
The Cowboy offers the final word on Mother and the Wild West. Screened as part of "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

DODA DIYA
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Israel. 2000, video, 25 min
Director: Moshe Churi
Hebrew, Arabic w/English subtitles
Doda Diya, a widow who leads a simple life, had waited 40 years to fulfill her biggest dream: returning to Djerba, a tiny island off the south of Tunisia where she grew up, to celebrate a memorial event for a righteous woman along with hundreds of Jews. Doda takes her nephew, Director Moshe Churi, with her because she believes, like everyone else, that anyone who prays there will get married within the year. A colourful film, full of love of life and common people.

EXPECTING
Drama, Israel, 2001, 16mm, 19 min
Director: Sigalit Liphshitz (Sam Spiegel Film School)
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Special Mention, Jewish International Film Festival 2001. Expecting is a blunt, but funny take on two sisters who couldn't be more different. One sister wishes she were pregnant. The other might be. Things come to a head when their pregnancy tests get mixed up.

FACING THE FOREST
Drama, Israel, 1999, video, 96 min
Director: Dany Wachsmann
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Cast: Gal Zayad, Yisrael Poliakov, Oved Zaituvi, Tamara Dayan
Alex, a graduate student, takes a job as a fire spotter in Israel's Carmel Forests while intending to finish his thesis on the Galilee at the time of the crusaders. One morning he discovers a dead body in the woods, and next to the body, an ancient coin. When the police arrive, the body has disappeared. Alex investigates the coin, and discovers that he has made a great historical find. But he soon comes to believe his own life is in danger when he realizes some people there don't like him snooping around. A compelling mystery based on a story by the acclaimed Israeli author A.B. Yehoshua.

FIG TREES (The Sixth Room)
Canada, 2001, video, 6 minutes
Directors: John Greyson/Dave Wall
English
An excerpt from a video opera in-progress, Fig Trees (The Sixth Room) recounts four stories of martyrdom, as sung to a court of the Spanish Inquisition. Screened as part of "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

GHETTO: THE HEART OF MEMORY
(Ghetto: il cuore della memoria)
North American Premiere
Documentary, Switzerland, 1999, video, 60 min
Director: Mateo Bellinelli (La Terza Luna)
Italian w/ English subtitles
The first traces of Jews in Venice go back to at least the year 1395 CE, when the city Senate noted "many Jews exercise medicine with success in Venice. A long calle, one of the narrow Venetian streets with houses ever higher and with increasingly cramped spaces, was home to some 5000 Jews. In just a few decades, five wonderful synagogues were erected in the ghetto, jammed between houses and almost hidden by them. They were designed by such fine architects as Baldassare Longhena, and decorated by expert artisans and sculptors such as Andrea Brustolon. Italian Actor Moni Ovadia narrates and reads from historical documents that refer to the Jews of Venice. In one particularly moving scene, he performs in Italian the famous Shylock speech from The Merchant of Venice.

GLOOMY SUNDAY (Ein Lied von Liebe und Tod)
Drama, Germany/Hungary, 1999, 35mm, 112 min
Director: Rolf Schübel
German w/English subtitles
Cast: Joachim Król, Stefano Dionisi, Ben Becker, Erika Marozsán
Don't let the title fool you. This film is anything but gloomy. The film begins in the present. A wealthy businessman has returned to a Budapest restaurant for the first time in years. After his meal, he requests a song only to collapse of a heart attack as it is played. The film takes us back fifty years. László (Joachim Król) and Ilona (Erika Marozsán) run the same restaurant in pre-war Budapest. Hoping to improve business, they hire a pianist, the somber but talented András (Stefano Dionisi). Ilona soon finds herself torn between the two men. A regular, Hans (Ben Becker), a German camera salesman, also takes an interest in Ilona. She rejects his advances, but they all become friends. After the Nazis occupy Budapest, Hans returns to the scene, but now as an SS officer. Despite their previous camaraderie, tensions rise to dangerous levels when the friends are reunited. Integrated into the plot is the melody, Gloomy Sunday, composed by András for Ilona. The haunting ballad makes the restaurant famous, but it also seems cursed when people begin committing suicide to it. Avoiding clichés and melodrama, Gloomy Sunday is an affecting romantic drama; and the ironic twist ending is one you won't soon forget.

GOOD MORNING CINDERELLA
Documentary, Israel, 2001, video, 24 min
Director: Liora Belford (Hadassah College)
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Cast: Liron Levo, Liat Glick-Levo (Kippur - 13th VJFF)
It seems that everyone has Ayelet's life figured out for her: whom she should marry, where she should work, and with whom she should live.

GREATEST OF THE GREATEST - ABRAHAM TUSCHINSKI
North American Premiere
Documentary, Netherlands, 2001, 35mm, 75 min
Director: Get Poppelaars
Dutch w/English subtitles
He was a poor Jewish tailor from Poland who found himself in Rotterdam on his way to America. In pursuit of his own American dream, Abraham Tuschinski opened a cinema palace there, meant to capture all the excitement he felt for the new film industry. More theatres followed, with the Tuschinski Theatre in Amsterdam as the finest jewel in the Dutch film king's crown. Director Ger Poppelaars puts the life story of the perfectionist showman Tuschinski in the context of his time. He reconstructs the  successful all-in-one shows in the cinema, complete with live acts and an orchestra. Using archival footage and interviews with people involved, he also depicts the eventful personal life of Tuschinski, who became a prime target of the Nazis during the occupation of Holland.

GUTMAN
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 21 min
Director: Shuli Eshel
English
Nahum Gutman, 1898-1980. Painter, writer, illustrator and sculptor, Gutman was among the founding fathers of the renewed Hebrew culture in modern Israel. This is the story of the artists life and work, shedding new light on the man and his creative insights. Filmmaker Shuli Eshel widens the spotlight on Nahum Gutmans legacy and makes clear why he is considered in Israel, more than a painter and writer, he is a cultural institution, a cultural hero.

HIT AND RUNAWAY
Drama, USA, 2001, 35mm, 88 min
Director: Christopher Livingston
English
Cast: Michael Parducci, Peter Jacobson (Showtime), Judy Prescott, Kerr Smith, Hoyt Richards
- Winner, Best Screenplay, 1999 Los Angeles Independent Film Festival
- Winner, Best Screenplay, 1999 US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen.
Alex Andero (Michael Parducci), a testosterone-driven dreamer who works in his family owned Greenwich Village café, fantasizes about making it big as a Hollywood screenwriter. Alex spends his evenings at a screenwriting class but feels he is making little progress - the truth is, he cant write. Alex, finds his solution in Elliot Springer (Peter Jacobson) a brilliant but uptight, gay Jewish playwright who is as chronically honest as he is socially inept. Although completely opposed to the idea or collaborating on a script he considers to be nothing more than fluff, Elliot succumbs when he realizes that Alex can help him get the one thing he wants most, a date with Joey ("Dawsons Creeks" Kerr Smith), the cute struggling actor who works for Alex at the café. While their two universes collide in a cramped New York City apartment as they battle it out over plot lines, sexuality, artistic integrity and a looming deadline, Alex and Elliot learn more about themselves than either had bargained for. Will the screenplay survive their growing friendship and will the friendship survive their screenplay 
"Hit and Runway is a little gem, a sparkling comedy with serious undertones about friendship, self-discovery, and artistic integrity." - Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times

IN SEARCH OF PEACE PART ONE: 1948-1967
Documentary, USA, 2001, 35mm, 111 min
Director: Richard Trank
English and Hebrew w/English subtitles
Narrated by: Michael Douglas, Edward Asner, Anne Bancroft, Richard Dreyfuss, Miriam Margolyes, Michael York
Chronicles the first two decades of Israels existence, offering new insights on the origins of the Middle East conflict. The film weaves together historical narrative, anecdotes, and dramatic personal stories, drawing on interviews with the leaders who helped make that history. Combining a rich tapestry of rare archival film and photos, In Search of Peace not only examines events in Israel, but their impact on other places as well - the Arab refugee camps, the General Assembly of the United Nations and from there to the world capitals of Moscow, Paris, London, Buenos Aires, Cairo and Washington D.C. The film offers a unique global perspective on one of the most important events of the Twentieth Century and one of the seminal events in the 3,500-year history of the Jewish People. This is the latest from Moriah Films, producer of The Long Way Home, which won the 1997 Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary.
"Stirring, often tragic yet hopeful..." - Kevin Thomas, L.A. Times

JE ME SOUVIENS ("I Remember")
Documentary, Canada, 2002, video, 47 min
Director: Eric R. Scott
French w/English subtitles
A provocative examination of fascism and anti-Semitism in Quebec during the 1930's and 1940's. The film follows the story of Esther Delisle, a French- Canadian doctoral candidate at Laval University, in Quebec City, who writes a controversial thesis exploring the pro-Fascist and anti-Semitic writings of French-Canada's nationalist leaders of those times. Published in 1993 under the title, The Traitor and the Jew, Delisle's research provoked intense debate. Interweaving rare archival footage and candid testimony by eyewitnesses and scholars, the film presents, for the first time, this chapter of Quebec history. Appearing in the film are former senators Jacques Hébert and Jean-Louis Roux, ecologist and educator Pierre Dansereau, historians Irving Abella (None is Too Many) and Robert O. Paxton (Vichy France), and Guy Bouthillier, president of Quebec's Saint Jean-Baptiste Society.

JEAN-CLAUDE GOLBERG: PORTRAIT OF AN ARTIST IN BROOKLYN
World Premiere
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 16 min
Director: Stephen Blauweiss
English
This film explores the work of painter Jean-Claude Goldberg, who was a hidden child in France during the Holocaust. After the death of his mother in the mid-1990s, Jean-Claude became better acquainted with the remnants of the Jewish community to which his mother had belonged. As he says, I discovered a new world - the world of the people who escaped the war, the survivors of the Holocaust. His increasing fascination with Jewish subjects led him to leave behind Paris and a 40-year career in commercial art and move to Brooklyn in order to be near the vibrant Orthodox  Jewish communities that reside there.

THE KOMEDIANT - 100 YEARS OF YIDDISH COMEDY THEATRE
Documentary, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 85 min
Director: Arnon Goldfinger
English and Yiddish w/English subtitles
Featuring: Mike Burstein, Lillian Lux, Susan Burstein-Roth, Fyvush Finkel, Shifra Lerer
- Winner, 1999 Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary. Pesach'ke Burstein, the dancing-singing comedian, was born in a small Jewish town in Poland in the late 19th century. At 14, he ran away from home to join a travelling troupe of Jewish actors, and from that day hence, the theatre became his life. Young Pesachke gained his reputation armed with an engaging ability to whistle. In 1924, Pesachke arrived in New York and quickly became a leading figure of the Yiddish theatre in its Golden Era. There on stage, he met a 16- year-old, up-and-coming actress, Lillian Lux. After marrying, the newlyweds took off on an acting tour to Europe, which happened to end in August 1939, and were fortunate to leave before the outbreak of war. After the war, the Bursteins became the parents of twins, Mike and Susan, who, by the age of seven, were appearing regularly on the stage under the names Motele and Zisele. Years later Mike Burstein became a popular entertainer in Israel and Holland and played main roles on Broadway. Laced with rare archival clips, the saga of the four Bursteins sheds light on the short, stormy, and charming history of the popular Yiddish theatre. The Bursteins and other past celebrities of the Yiddish theatre tell bittersweet stories and anecdotes spanning the heyday of Yiddish theatre, down to its tragic decline, in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
"Absolutely wonderful!" - Mel Brooks
"This marvelous film chronicles a time that was a part of all of our lives." - Carl Reiner
"Elegantly constructed, with real cleverness and aplomb vividly and even caustically as gripping as any dramatized version could be the range of Goldfinger's coverage and research is astonishing" - Robert Koehler, Variety

KING SOLOMON AND THE BEE
Animated, Israel, 2001, video, 13 min
Director: Noam Meshulam
English
Delightful animated version of the famous story of the Bee that stings King Solomon.

LATE MARRIAGE
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 100 min
Director: Dover Kosashvilli
Hebrew and Georgian w/English subtitles
Cast: Lior Louie Ashkenazi, Ronit Elkabetz, Moni Moshonov, Lili Kosashvili, Aya Steinovits Laor
- Winner of 9 Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actor (Lior Ashkenazi), Best Actress (Ronit Elkabetz) and Best Screenplay. A ferociously funny portrait of family strife. Zaza's traditional Georgian parents are determined to find him a suitable Jewish bride - preferably a rich, beautiful virgin - despite the fact that he's already in love with Judith, a Moroccan divorcée with a 6-year-old daughter. First-time director Kosashvili deftly balances laugh-out-loud humour with unsettling family conflict, and even manages a graphic bedroom scene that's as tender as it is erotic. As his tyrannical parent's antics become more outrageous, Zaza is faced with having to choose between respect of the strict confines of family and tradition, or the love of his life.
"...it's a little gem: funny, humane, sexy and moving. A gorgeously sensual comedy turns dark...This is a pitch-perfect family tragicomedy." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian
"It's knife-edge stuff... and you end up feeling that signing on for life in the Foreign Legion would be preferable to living with this family - Philip French, The Observer
NOTE: mature content.

LEZ-BE-EET
Canada, 2001, S8mm, 2 minutes
Director: Ms. Moustache
English
Lez-be-eet is a loving and funny call to be seen and heard. Screened as part of "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

LIFE, DEATH AND SOCCER (La Vie, La Mort et Le Foot)
Drama, Belgium, 2000, video, 6 min
Director: Sam Garbarski
French w/English subtitles
Two rabbis wonder if there are soccer games in heaven.

LOUBA'S GHOSTS (Les Fantomes de Louba)
Drama, France, 2001, 35mm, 107 min
Director: Martine Dugowson
Cast: Elsa Zylberstein (Man is a Woman - 11th VJFF), Camille Japy, Jean-Philippe Ecoffey
French w/ English subtitles
From the director of the French box office hit Mina Tannenbaum, comes this evocative account of jealousy and revenge. The captivating Elsa Zylberstein stars as Louba, the tortured and haunted daughter of Jewish Holocaust survivors. Although her parents survived the deportations, Louba finds herself alone after her Mother is killed accidentally and her father abandons her. A Catholic foster family in the French countryside takes her in. She attempts to make a new life for herself but is betrayed by her young lover Charlie, and Jeanie, her flirtatious stepsister. Louba again feels alone. Twenty years later their paths cross in modern Paris.
"This is one of those rare and rewarding films that goes places you don't expect, so the less you know going in, the better. But by all means go...As the film inexorably builds to a devastatingly open-ended conclusion, it never lets the viewer off the hook with pat psychology or easy villains. It's an approach that actively involves the audience, and it pays off with a haunting portrait of one of the Holocaust's uncounted victims. You won't easily forget Louba." - Michael Fox, Jewish Bulletin

LOVE INVENTORY (Reshimat Ahava)
Documentary, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 93 min
Director: David Fisher
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
- Winner, Wolgin Prize for Best Documentary, Jerusalem Film Festival 2000
- Winner, Israel Academy Award for Best Documentary
David Fisher lost his parents one after the other, leaving him and his four siblings with a 50-year-old mystery. For two years he's been searching for his sister, who was taken as a day-old infant from his mother's bed in the maternity hospital. His parents, both Holocaust survivors, arrived in Israel broken-hearted and penniless, leaving five children to pay the price of healing their shattered lives. Now Fisher brings his family together on a mission that takes them to places that their parents hoped they would never reach. "It's a painful process through which this film brings my family back to its roots and me back to the really important things in life There were several way-stations on my journey: pain, humour, tears, enormous comfort, love. My own love inventory keeps growing larger and larger. Now my wife and our children are involved too. To find you, I had to go looking" - Director David Fisher.
"Undisputably the highlight of the 2000 Jerusalem Film Festival, David Fisher's Love Inventory is a riveting documentary, both thematically and technically, that renders the lines between fictional and nonfictional cinema almost irrelevant." - Emanual Levy, Variety
"Love Inventory had me completely enthralled... It is all so personal and unblinking we empathize as if we were related to them ourselves. I can't remember the last time I was so sorry a movie had to end." - John Stackpole, Audience Magazine

MAMADRAMA: THE JEWISH MOTHER IN CINEMA
Documentary, Australia, 2001, video, 73 min
Director: Monique Schwarz
English
The Jewish mothers that I know and love are sexy, smart, and strong, but I have never seen this mother in Hollywood movies, and I set out to find out why, - Filmmaker Monique Schwarz
Mamadrama combines film clips, cultural commentary, interviews with Hollywood and Israeli filmmakers and footage from Schwarzs earlier films in an exploration of  the image of the Jewish mother in film beginning with early silent and Yiddish films  up through contemporary movies. Hollywood directors Paul Mazursky, Paul Bogart, Larry Peerce and actress Lainie Kazan reflect on their Jewish mothers. Critics Patricia Erens, J. Hoberman, Michael Medved, Amy Kronish and Sharon Rivo discuss the changing image of the Jewish mother on screen. Israeli filmmakers Avram Hefner and Zepel Yeshurun and actress Gila Almagor illustrate the uniqueness of Israeli filmic images. Mamadrama includes selections from Come Blow Your Horn, Goodbye Columbus, Next Stop Greenwich Village, Jazz Singer, Portnoys Complaint, Wheres Poppa, Torch Song Trilogy, a compilation of rare Yiddish films and recent Israeli features.

MANDELA - A RIGHTEOUS MAN
Documentary, South Africa, 2001, video, 18 min
Director: Ingrid Gavshon
English
Mandela A Righteous Man tells the story of President Nelson Mandela through the eyes of different Jews whom he met during his struggle to liberate South Africa from the shackles of Apartheid. With never-before seen footage, A Righteous Man shows a personal side to Nelson Mandela. The film was commissioned by the Kushlick Kaplan Foundation for the South African Jewish Museum, Cape Town 2000.

MY DEAR CLARA
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 44 min
Director: Gary Beitel
English
When Clara Greenspan left Montreal for Warsaw in June of 1938 she could not have known how her personal destiny would soon become intertwined with the events about to unfold in Europe Set in Canada, Poland, Russian, and Germany, between 1938 and 1947, My dear Clara interweaves love letters, personal diaries, family photographs, official correspondence and rarely seen archival footage. The film tells the dramatic story of a Polish Jewish refugee's struggle for survival alongside his Canadian wifes unflinching battle to change her governments immigration policies.
"Montreal filmmaker Garry Beitel returns with the fascinating 44-minute My dear Clara...Beitel has adeptly brought together archival footage, interviews and correspondences." - Matthew Hays, Montreal Mirror

OBSESSED WITH JEWS
USA, 1999, video, 9 minutes
Director: Jeff Krulik
English
Obsessed with Jews takes us on an impassioned tour of Neil Keller's collection of memorabilia of famous Jews. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

OCEAN AVENUE
USA, 1999, 16mm, 20 minutes
Director: Shari Rothfarb
English
An older woman undergoes a transformation as she searches for her lost daughter in the streets of Brooklyn. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

ON THE FRINGE
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 52 min
Director: Noam Dmaski
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
A few months ago, Shmuel Greenfield gave his parents, residents of Mea Shearim, the worst kind of news. Greenfield had decided to join the army. In recent years, many Haredi youngsters have found themselves torn between a religious lifestyle and their wish to join the army, to acquire an education and profession and to find their niche within Israeli society. About two years ago, something unexpected happened. Almost half-heartedly and in secret, the Rabbis permitted a few dozen young men to join the army on an experimental basis. Should they succeed, others would follow. The yeshivas are observing this with fear and trepidation. On The Fringe closely observes the stories of four young Haredi men who have chosen to enlist, and raises important issues surrounding the often-confrontational relationship between secular and non-secular Jews in Israel.

ONCE
Documentary, Israel, 2001, video, 12 min
Director: Ellen Flanders
English, Yiddish w/English subtitles
Once is a film about language, loss, and the construction of memory through language. Through voiceovers and fragmented footage, the characters in Once tell how they have come to study language in an attempt to relocate themselves at particular junctures in their lives. They describe their desire to learn Yiddish, a language they have speculative connections to or memories of. Their distance from the language and its intrinsic power to link them to an identity seems to increase their appetites for this language lost. Yiddish, while providing the elements of language, also represents a loss for, and only draws them further from, notions of home. Once is a film that places language at the center of images, at times allowing the spoken word to dominate while we are suffused with metaphoric imagery.

ONCE WE GROW UP (Quand on Sera Grands)
Drama, France, 2000, 35mm, 92 min
Director: Renaud Cohen
French w/ English subtitles
Cast: Mathieu Demy, Amira Casar (Would I Lie to You), Maurice Benichou, Louise Benazeraf, Marie Payen
- Winner, Best Actor, 2001 Paris Film Festival
- Winner, Public's Prize, 2001 Angers Film Festival
At thirty, Simon is juggling with life and its problems. He is torn between his job as a journalist at "Tobacco Monthly", his non-Jewish girlfriend with whom he can't seem to have a child, and his friends Fabrice, Léa and Roché. On the family side, Simon should be sorting things out with his psychiatrist father but he mainly takes care of his Grandma who is losing her mind and making life impossible for everyone around her. When he meets his pregnant neighbour Claire, a fellow North African Jew who is being  neglected by her husband, Simon's life takes an unexpected turn. A delightful, bittersweet comedy.

THE OPTIMISTS
Documentary, Israel/USA, 2000, video, 90 min
Director: Jack Comforty
Hebrew, Bulgarian and English w/English subtitles
- Winner, Jewish Experience Documentary, 2000 Jewish International Film Festival
- Co-winner, Peace Prize, 2001 Berlin International Film Festival
In March 1943, 8,500 prominent Jews in Bulgaria were to be the first from that country to be deported to the death camp at Treblinka. Bulgaria was allied with Germany. Yet another European Jewish community - this one inheritors of the distinctive culture of the Jews of Medieval Spain - seemed destined for quick annihilation. And yet, after waiting several hours at deportation centers, these targeted Bulgarian Jews were simply told to go home. Ultimately, despite Nazi pressures, the entire 50,000-member Jewish community of Bulgaria was spared  the Holocaust. Theirs was the only Jewish community to survive intact in Nazi Europe. The Optimists takes its title from the name of a group of Bulgarian jazz musicians who brought to Bulgaria the American Big Band sounds of the Thirties and Forties. Several of the people interviewed in the film played in this band before and after the war. Israeli filmmaker Jacky Comforty is the son of Bulgarian Jews; his paternal grandparents and extended family were among those rounded up for the train ride to Auschwitz.

RITA
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 50 min
Director: Shiri Shachar Hebrew w/English subtitles
Rita is a dynamic Persian Israeli singer of international acclaim. Inspired by her husband, musician Rami Kleinstein, Rita has attained respect on the concert stage and in television drama in Israel. This documentary gives fresh insight into Rita's career and her remarkable life.

RUSSIAN DOLL
Canadian Premiere
Drama, Australia, 2001, video, 90 min
Director: Stravos Kazantzidis
English, Russian w/English subtitles
Cast: Hugo Weaving (Lord of the Rings, Matrix), Natalia Novikova, David Wenham (Moulin Rouge), Rebecca Frith
- Winner, Best Screenplay, 200 Australian Film Institute. Harvey (Hugo Weaving), a self-doubting private investigator, is hired to solve an adultery case but discovers the cheater with his fiancée. Lost and dejected, Harvey quits his job and wallows in booze and the occasional odd blind date. Meanwhile, Katia (Natalia Novikova), a stylish, sexy Jewish woman from St. Petersburg, arrives in Sydney after answering an ad from an international matchmaking agency only to find her prospective groom dead on arrival. Stranded in Australia with no one to turn to, Katia meets Ethan (David Wenham), a married man and Harveys best friend. Ethan is soon scheming to figure out a way to keep Katia in the country without his wife Miriam (Rebecca Frith) discovering the affair. He comes up with the perfect solution: he offers Harvey enough money to start writing the novel he has always dreamed of, if he agrees to marry Katia! A thoroughly charming romantic-comedy.
"Novikova is utterly charming...Russian Doll is a breezy pleasure." - Cary Darling, Miami Herald 
"A romantic comedy that treads familiar Green Card terrain with considerable charm ..." - Dennis Harvey, Variety

SADEH MAGNETTI: 
SANDAK (The Godfather) AND DEMONSTRATIONS
TV Drama, Israel, 2001, video, 2 x 45 min
Director: Sharon Amrani
Hebrew w/English subtitles
A sneak peek at two episodes from an exciting new series that will be broadcast in Israel in the fall of 2002. The series portrays the intimate side of a traditional Sephardic family from Jherba, a small island off the coast of Tunisia. They struggle to maintain a Jewish life within a modern, mostly secular, Ashkenazi-Israeli society. The first episode, The Sandak, presents the dramatic confrontation between the father, Shimon, and his very religious eldest son, Efraim, who is trying to recapture his  Sephardic and rabbinic roots. In another episode, the father Shimon, who made aliya in the 60's as a young man with Yechiel, his father, a highly respected rabbi from Jherba, built himself up from nothing to become one of Israel's most successful building contractors. Tensions rise when two of his sons join together to stop one of his ambitious building projects.

SHALOM Y'ALL
World Premiere
Documentary, USA, 2002, video, 60 min
Director: Brian Bain
English
A feature-length documentary film that explores the history, culture and politics of the Jewish experience in the southern region of the United States. At the centre of the story is Brian Bain, a third-generation, southern Jew from New Orleans in search of his cultural roots. Travelling in an old Cadillac like the type his grandfather drove as a hat salesman on the same roads, Brian takes the viewer on a 4200 mile visual, emotional, and educational journey through diverse landscapes - the Gulf  Coast; coastal low-country, the Piedmont and its industrial cities; sprawling sunbelt metropolises, rolling hills, and the Delta flatlands. Along the way he meets historians; storytellers; musicians; a small-town store owner; an African-American, Jewish police chief; the town that once claimed to be the Catskills of the South; a golden gloves boxer; and much more. From barbecued matzo balls to Civil Rights, with humour and affection, the film tells the story of a thriving culture blending the Old World with the New South.

SILENT SONG
Canada, 2001, 16mm, 6 minutes
Director: Elida Schogt
English
The elegant and elegaic trilogy of Zyklon Portrait, The Walnut Tree and Silent Song, examine the personal impact of memory and history, sixty years after World War II. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

SOBIBOR, OCTOBER 14, 1943, 4 p.m.
Documentary, France, 2001, 35mm, 95 min
Director:Claude Lanzmann (Shoah)
Hebrew, French, German w/English subtitles
In this unique document, Claude Lanzmann confutes two cliches: that the Jews had no inkling of what awaited them in the gas chambers, and that they went to their deaths without resistance. The full title of the film, Sobibor, Oct. 14, 1943, 4 p.m., refers to the place and time when Jewish prisoners in the Sobibor extermination camp staged a successful uprising, the only one, against the Nazi captors. The story, which sometimes has the aura of a fairy tale, is told to the camera by Yehuda Lerner,  who took part in the revolt as a youth. Lerner was taken from the Warsaw ghetto and sent to his first camp when he was 16. Before being sent to Sobibor, the brave and resourceful boy proceeded to escape from eight different camps in six months, each time having the luck to be picked up by German soldiers and taken to another place instead of shot. Sobibor had been mentioned in Shoah, Lanzmann's 1985 marathon, landmark documentary about the Holocaust told through the voices of its survivors. But Lanzmann felt that Lerner's extraordinary account deserved a film of its own.
"Has a terrible fascination that glues viewers to the screen" - Deborah Young, Variety
"Nothing Hollywood might devise could be as nerve-rackingly suspenseful as the second half of Sobibor...The feelings that this simple, deeply intelligent movie produces -- of horror, admiration, hope and grief -- are as hard to name as they are to dispel." - A.O. Scott, New York Times

STRANGE FRUIT
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 56 min
Director: Joel Katz
English
One of the most important protest songs ever written, "Strange Fruit" was a staple in Billie Holiday's career. Its lyrics were read on the floor of Congress during ultimately unsuccessful efforts to pass Federal anti-lynching legislation, and it has been recorded by dozens of artists since it was written in the mid-1930's. While many people mistakenly assume that "Strange Fruit" was written by Holiday herself, the words and music were actually composed by Abel Meeropol, a New York City public school teacher and a Jew of Russian immigrant origin who published music under the name Lewis Allan. Meeropol's best-known composition was "The House I Live In", most famously performed by Frank Sinatra. The film tells a dramatic story of American race relations and explores various aspects of social activism. The film also includes a devastating recitation of the lyrics by Abbey Lincoln and equally powerful musical performances by Holiday (from a 1958 BBC broadcast) and Cassandra Wilson. A must see for music lovers.

TAQASIM
Documentary, Israel, 1999, video, 43 min
Director: Duki Dror
Hebrew and Arabic w/ English subtitles
A voyage to the hidden treasures of classical Arabic music, and to the participation of Jewish musicians in this cultural heritage. Taqasim draws a unique portrait of the Middle East in the 30s, a region that shared mutual culture, language and economy. With stylishly shot music segments, along with unforgettable back-ally jam sessions played by Felix Mizrachi, Zehava Ben, Abraham Salman, and more. The film was shot in Cairo.

TIME OF FAVOR (Ha-hesder)
Drama, Israel, 2000, 35mm, 100 min
Director: Joseph Cedar
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Cast: Aki Avni, Tinkerbell (Total Love), Assi Dayan and Idan Alterman
- Winner of Six Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Aki Avni) and Best Actress (Tinkerbell). Menachem (Aki Avni) studies in a yeshiva on the West Bank led by the revered Rabbi Meltzer (Assi Dayan). He is a dedicated and highly respected army officer in a unit composed entirely of Orthodox members from the yeshiva. Rabbi Meltzer - complex, profound and in harmony with his faith - is looked upon warily by the military officers as a fanatic that could lead the company to dangerous ground. He wants Pini (Edan Alterman), the prized pupil in his class and Menachem's best friend, to marry his daughter Michal (Tinkerbell). But as Pini courts Michal, Menachem, strong-willed and passionate, falls in love with her. With trepidation, Michal and Menachem come to grips with their feelings, leaving Pini feeling betrayed by both. As this hurtful love triangle evolves, a shocking scheme comes into play to resume control of the Arab holy sites on the Temple Mount in the center of Jerusalem -- through tunnels underneath the Mount. Both a politico-psychological drama and a love story between a passionate woman and two best friends, Time of Favor raises important questions of faith to one's religion, duty to one's nation, and love for oneself.
"One of the most successful, provocative and intensely contemporary of Israeli films, so much so that to watch it is to feel the country having a passionate argument with itself." - Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

TINY BUBBLES
Canada, 1997, 16mm, 6 minutes
Director: Bo Myers
English
Tiny Bubbles is a hand-crafted and soft spoken self portrait, all about the significance of the other. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

TKIES KAF (The Vow)
Drama, Poland, 1937, 35mm, 82 min
Director: Henryk Szaro
Yiddish w/ English subtitles
Cast: Zygmund Turkow, Dina Halpern
This classic tale of love, fate and mysticism is one of several movie adaptations of an ancient folk tale. Two childhood friends make a sacred pact promising a marriage between their unborn children. Competing suitors and clashing ways of life nearly prevent the fulfillment of their vow, but the divine intervention of Elijah results in a happy ending. One of the last films produced in Europe before the Holocaust, the film captures authentic scenes of Jewish shtetl life, traditional folk melodies and Yiddish love songs. Director Szaro is believed to have perished in the Warsaw Ghetto. Newly restored by the National Center for Jewish Film.

TO LIVE WITH TERROR
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Argentina/US, 2001, video, 60 min
Director: Ton Vriens
English, Spanish w/English subtitles
In the 1990s, two terrorist attacks occurred in Buenos Aires against the Jewish community. The first attack occurred in 1992 when a car bomb struck the Israeli consulate, killing 29 people. An American, David Goldman was among the dead. His father Ralph has been pressing Argentine President Menem for a thorough investigation. Menem, a Syrian by birth, had close ties to the Arab world, although he had been courting American favour. Two years later, in July of 1994, a truck bomb exploded outside a Jewish center, AMIA. Eighty-five people perished. President Menem never even visited the site. The film makes clear the layers of official corruption as well as pervasive anti-Semitism in Argentina, a country that hosted Nazis fleeing Europe after the war. Both attacks have faded quickly from the memory of the international community. Only the tenacity of surviving family members pressing for justice is finally bringing to light a conspiracy of international proportion. The film has special resonance in America after the events of 9/11.

TOTAL LOVE
Drama, India/Israel/Holland, 2000, 35mm, 85 min
Director: Gur Bentwich
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Cast: Gur Bentwich, Herman Brook, Maor Cohen, Tinkerbell (Time of Favor)
- Winner, Special Jury Prize, Comedy, 2001 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival. Director Gur Bentwich's first film, Blue Planet, has been playing nonstop in Israeli movie theaters for three years. His second film-the fresh and sexy TLV (Total Love) has all the makings of another cult hit. Three Israeli friends plan to distribute a designer love drug called TLV created by Chaim, charmingly played by Israeli pop singer Maor Cohen. All three are in love with Renana (Israeli sensation Tinkerbell) who has travelled to Amsterdam to sell the drug. When she disappears, her ex-lovers must team up to track her down and rescue her from a remote prison in India. Shot on location in the Himalayas, Bombay, and Goa, the film also features director Bentwich, and Dutch painter and rock star Herman Brood. An unpredictable and affectionate delight.

TREMBLING BEFORE G-D
Documentary, USA, 2000, 35mm, 84 min
Director:Sandi Simcha DuBowski
English
Trembling Before G-d is an unprecedented feature documentary that shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality, and religious fundamentalism. Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are gay or lesbian, the film portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma - how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals, from the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts. What emerges is a loving and fearless testament to faith and survival and the universal struggle to belong. Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with irony, humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a thousands-year old tradition. Ultimately, they are forced to question how they can pursue truth and faith in their lives.

TSIPA AND VOLF
USA, 2001 video, 20 minutes
Director: Daniel Gamburg
English, Russian, Yiddish
A tender and carefully crafted portrait, Tsipa and Volf captures the lifestories of two aging grandparents. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

UNHEARD VOICES
Canadian Premiere
Documentary, Argentina, 2001, video, 10 min
Director: Beth Kruvant
English
As a result of the collapse of the Argentinean economy and a legacy of government corruption one quarter of Argentinas 200,000 Jews currently live below the poverty line. Since the capture of Eichman in 1960, to the current economic crisis, the Jews of Buenos Aires have been riding on a roller-coaster of remarkable troubles. This documentary will look from the inside of the Jewish community at the cycles of destruction to the current status of economic and psychological crisis. While raising awareness of the desperate needs of this particular Jewish community, Unheard Voices shows how a once-vibrant Jewish community battling anti-Semitism, assimilation, and the loss of Jewish identity, may be facing its final battle, poverty.

WAITING FOR THE MESSIAH (Esperando al Mesias)
Drama, Argentine/Italy/Spain, 2000, 35mm, 98 min
Director: Daniel Burman
Spanish w/English subtitles
- Winner, Best Actor (Enrique Pineyro), 2001 Mar del Plata Festival, Argentina's most important film festival.
- Nominated for 7 Argentina Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best New Actor, Best New Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Original Screenplay. Ariel (Daniel Hendler) lives with his family in a traditional Jewish neighbourhood in Buenos Aires. He's expected to take over the family restaurant and settle down with his childhood sweetheart Estela (Melina Petriella), but he has plans of his own. He gets his chance after a shortfall on the Tokyo Stock market causes a major Argentine bank to collapse, forcing Ariel's father into bankruptcy. In search of new opportunities, Ariel gets a job on the graveyard shift at a video production company where he meets a beautiful older woman. The collapse also costs middle-aged bank teller Santamaría (Enrique Piñeyro) his job, home and marriage. Living on the street, he meets Elsa (Stefania Sandrelli ) the lonely attendant of a public lavatory. A thoughtful and poignant character study built around recent economic problems in Argentina.
"Messiah handles ethnicity lightly and affectionately, making Jewishness one of many parallel universes that coexist in a tricky urban environment." - Variety Magazine
"The Argentinian director and screenwriter is only 28, but this, his second feature, has the polish, wit and attention to detail one would expect from a filmmaker twice his age...He has created characters with passion and compassion." - David B. Green, Jerusalem Report

THE WALNUT TREE
Canada, 2000, 16mm, 11 minutes
Director: Elida Schogt
English
The elegant and elegaic trilogy of Zyklon Portrait, The Walnut Tree and Silent Song, examine the personal impact of memory and history, sixty years after World War II. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

YUD
World Premiere
Animated, Canada, 2002, video, 8 min
Director: Maya Zuckerman
English
Animated revelation of G-d's name. By searching for meaning behind the name of G-d, we ultimately reach a unity that draws all people together into a circle of Dance. Although the story uses symbols derived from Jewish sources, its meaning is universal.

ZYKLON PORTRAIT
Canada, 1999, 16mm, 13 minutes
Director: Elida Schogt
English
The elegant and elegaic trilogy of Zyklon Portrait, The Walnut Tree and Silent Song, examine the personal impact of memory and history, sixty years after World War II. Screened as part of the "Two Jews on a Train" spotlight.

 

2001

These are the films that played during the 13th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.

AIMÉE & JAGUAR
Drama, Germany, 1999, 35mm, 125 minutes
German w/ English subtitles
Directed by Max Färberböck
In 1943, while bombs are falling on Berlin and the Gestapo is purging the city of Jews, a dangerous love affair blossoms between two women. One of them, Lily Wust (Juliane Köhler), married to a German soldier on active duty and mother of four sons, is the perfect German hausfrau. At first fascinated and confused, she is slowly seduced by Felice Schragenheim (Maria Schrader), a Jewish member of the Underground. But Lily knows little about the enigmatic Felice, who disappears for days at a time without satisfactory explanation. The truth might bring them closer together or tear them apart. Based on a true story. See also Love Story, 1998 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival 

ALL MY LOVED ONES (Vsichni moji blízcí)
Drama, Czech Republic, 1999, 35mm, 93 minutes
Czech w/ English subtitles
As the Nazi's move closer to Czechoslovakia, four brothers face the danger each in his own way. The focus of the story is the family of Jakub Silberstein (Josef Abraham) a respected doctor in the community. His blind faith in family unity threatens to prevent him from accepting the inevitable and taking the necessary action. The fact-based film is dedicated to Nicholas Winton, a British humanitarian who succeeded in rescuing hundreds of local Jewish children, including the film's writer, Karel Reisz.

AM I STILL A JEW TO YOU
Documentary, Canada, video, 9 minutes

CHILDREN OF THE STORM
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 95 minutes
Directed by Jack Kuper
Between 1947 and 1949, a total of 1,123-orphaned young Holocaust survivors arrived in Canada. These were children unlike any other children. They had already lost entire families and had witnessed the end of the world as they knew it. They were now being asked to accept new parents, new siblings, new schools, a new language, a new social structure and new identities. Overcoming broken hearts and spirits, depression, anxiety and fear, most of them blossomed into highly successful citizens, contributing to their adopted country in business, law, medicine, education, art and science.

COMBINATIONS
Documentary, Israel, video,
Hebrew w/ English Subtitles
Directed by Eran Livny
Combinations tells the story of teenage immigrants who come to Israel from Ethiopia, Morocco, Russia and many other countries, living together in a boarding school in Jerusalem. The film follows their background, difficulties and successes in their new home.

THE CROSS INSCRIBED IN THE STAR OF DAVID
Documentary, TVP S.A., Poland, 1997, video, 27 minutes,
Polish w/ English subtitles
Directed by Grzegorz Linkowski
A compelling portrait of a man in search of his identity. On his 35th birthday, Father Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel, learned that he was a Jew saved from the Ghetto of Swieciany as an infant by a Christian woman. Now he must reconcile his Jewish roots with his life as an ordained Priest.

DAD ON THE RUN (Cours Toujours)
Comedy, France, 2000, 35mm, 92 minutes
French w/ English subtitles
Directed by Dante Desarthe
A screwball comedy that mixes humour with religious allegory. Jonas (Clément Sibony) and Paco (Isaac Sharry) are best friends and professional Bar-Mitzvah musicians. Jonas has just become a father. Although an Ashkenazi himself, in an attempt to please his Sephardic wife, he decides to follow a North African custom and bury his newborn son's foreskin three days after the bris. Tired and forgetful after a long Bar-Mitzvah gig, Jonas dashes out late at night to complete the task but fate and farce intervene.

DRINKELEH FRESSERKEH AND THE ANGEL'S FOOT CAKE
Animated, Canada, 2001, video, 5:30 minutes
Yiddish w/ subtitles
Directed by Sharon Katz
Drinkeleh Fresserkeh decides to make a cake in the shape of an Angel's foot. The Angels take umbrage and the fun begins. Delightfully raucous modern Yiddish animation.

THE DYBBUK
Drama, TVP S.A., Poland, 1999, Video, 90 minutes
Polish w/ English subtitles
Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Set in turn-of-the-century rural Poland, this classic story - based on the play by Szymon An-Ski - retells the famous Chassidic folktale of a wandering soul in search of an earthly host. The wrath of the spiritual world is unleashed when a matrimonial promise binding a yeshiva student and a young woman is betrayed by the girl's father. Using the power of the Kabala, the ancient Jewish practice of mysticism, the student conspires to free his own soul from his body and inhabit the form of his beloved.

FAMILY SECRET
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 58 minutes
French and Romanian w/ English subtitles
Directed by Pola Rapaport
The film begins with the surprising discovery of an unknown brother - born in wartime Paris and raised in communist Romania while his sisters grew up in middle-class America, ignorant of their father's secret. Using black and white images, archival footage and video, the filmmaker assembles the pieces of her father's mysterious past. As she comes to know her foreign brother, we learn that the separation of time and distance often cannot overcome similarities in the looks and gestures, sense of humour and philosophies that relatives can share.

FIGHTER
Documentary, USA, 2000, 35mm, 91 min.
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev
Voted best documentary at this year's Newport International Film Festival. A psychological adventure unfolds as two friends, both Czech Jews persecuted by the Nazis, take a risky road trip into the past. Jan Weiner is a feisty 77-year-old who now lives in Massachusetts and still boxes despite his years. His travelling companion is Arnost Lustig, a professor and author who has decided to document his friend's life. Together they revisit scenes of humour and romance, of narrow escapes and deadly confrontations. But their journey home becomes a contentious clash of personalities that will ultimately take their friendship to the brink of collapse.

FINBAR LEBOWITZ
Comedy, USA/Ireland, 2000, 35mm, 25 minutes
A simple, Irish labourer falls for a sarcastic, Jewish girl from who is working in her Uncle's Dublin bookstore. In an effort to win her over, he decides to convert to Judaism.

HANELE
Drama, Czech Republic, 1999, 35mm, 85 minutes,
Czech w/ English subtitles
Directed by Karel Kachyna
A tale of generational and ideological conflict set in an enclave of religious Jews in Sub-Carpathian Ukraine in the 1930's. Hanele rebels against her parent's religious rituals and customs and leaves for work in the big city. There she becomes involved in the growing Zionist movement and meets Ivo Karadzic, a secular Jew who has forsaken all spiritual belief. Soon, her unwillingness to return to the ways of her family threatens to split her home community. The latest film from acclaimed Czech film director Karel Kachyna (Loves Among Raindrops, Fany, The Cow)

ISA KREMER: THE PEOPLE'S DIVA
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 56 minutes
Directed by Nina Baker Feinberg and Ted Schillinger
A charismatic stage performer who crisscrossed the world and was feted by princes, sultans and czars; a diva activist who confronted totalitarianism and despotism with her music; an internationally acclaimed artistic pioneer who sang in 24 languages and was the first woman to bring Yiddish songs to the world's concert stages, Isa Kremer has been almost forgotten - until now.   In reclaiming Isa for posterity, the film takes us from her earliest years in pre-Revolutionary Russia through an eventful personal and professional life in Europe, the United States, and South America. 

ISRAEL ROCKS!
Documentary, Netherlands, 2000, video, 55 minutes
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Directed by Izzy Abrahami and Erga Netz
This new, award-winning film features some 20 singers, bands and choirs playing and singing in various styles: pop, rock, blues, folk and rap. Each one of the revealing songs in ISRAEL ROCKS! depicts the major problems and political complexities of life in Israel.  Through listening to rocker Rabbi Tuvia Bolton who sings of the coming of the Messiah while Shalom Hanoch sings that the Messiah will never come, one can perceive the clash between religious and secular Jews. And through the songs of Palestinian pop singer Amal Murkus and the choir of the Jewish settlers in the Golan Heights, one can sense the struggle between the Israelis and Palestinians. Among other featured performers are: The Choir of The Disabled Army, Yemenite singer Marglit Tzanani, Absolut, a band made up of recent Russian immigrants, and world-famous singer Noa with her song "Homemade Religion."

JAZZMAN FROM THE GULAG
Documentary, France/Netherlands, 1999, 58 minutes
English & Russian w/ subtitles
Directed by Pierre-Henry Salfati
This fascinating documentary retraces the life of the man nicknamed the "White Louis Armstrong" by Armstrong himself. Born Adolph Rosner in Poland, Eddie was a child prodigy in violin. Despite his classical training, he felt a strong affinity for American jazz, and eventually joined the famous German band, the Weintraubs Syncopators. When the Nazi's came to power, Jazz was declared "degenerate" and Rosner fled eastward to the Soviet Union. He was initially praised and enjoyed great popularity touring extensively in support of the war effort. But after the war, Stalin turned against all western influence; Rosner was accused of "rootless cosmopolitanism" and exiled to Siberia. The film utilizes rare documents and archival footage, and interviews with many of Rosner's contemporaries.

KEY FROM SPAIN: SONGS AND STORIES FROM FLORY JAGODA
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 40 minutes
Directed by Ankica Petrovic and Mischa Livingstone
According to legend, when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, they took with them the keys to their homes and synagogues hoping that some day they would return. They never did, but their Spanish cultural heritage remained a powerful influence in their lives. In this uplifting tale of survival and continuity, acclaimed Sephardic folksinger, Flory Jagoda, tells her story and sings songs both old and new in Ladino, the tongue of her ancestors. Flory grew up on the outskirts of Sarajevo, Bosnia. Under the threat of Nazi persecution, she fled to the United States. Single-handedly she has revived the nearly forgotten musical traditions of her childhood.

KIPPUR
Drama, Israel/France, 35mm, 120 minutes
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Directed by Amos Gitai
October 6, 1973. It is Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. When war suddenly breaks out, Weintraub picks up his friend Ruso, and the two head off in a little Fiat sedan towards the front to meet their unit. Despite traffic jams and detours they finally arrive but their group is nowhere to be found. Eventually, they end up in a helicopter first aid unit assigned to retrieve wounded and shot down pilots. With Kippur, Gitai (Kadosh) has created a bloody and relentless anti-war film based on his own experiences as a veteran of the Yom Kippur War. The images are hyper-realistic, both during the at scenes, and the moments of frustration and tedium faced by the young, inexperienced soldiers. An astonishing and gritty film.

THE LAST JEWISH TOWN
Documentary, Israel, 2000, video, 37 minutes
Directed by Gil Lesnik
At the beginning of the 18th century, the "mountain Jews" of north Azerbaijan were given a portion of land to run their lives according to Jewish tradition, without interference. Today, their descendants, numbering around 6000, live according to Sephardi tradition in the town of Kresnia Sloboda. The film vividly and poignantly captures their vanishing way of life.

LISA
Drama, France, 2000, 35mm, 109 minutes
French w/ English subtitles
Directed by Pierre Grimblat
Sam, a Parisian filmmaker, wants to make a documentary on Sylvain Marceau, a reckless, womanizing young actor who mysteriously vanished during the German occupation of France 50 years earlier. Incredibly, he tracks down Lisa Maurin, whom he discovers was involved with Marceau before his disappearance. She's reluctant at first, but as she comes to trust Sam, she begins to share an incredible adventure and love affair of her youth. As the story unfolds, Sam discovers some startling similarities between himself and Lisa's Sylvain. 

MAKE ME A MATCH
Documentary, USA, video, 76 minutes
Directed by Allen Mondell and Cynthia Salzman Mondell
Filled with hope and humour, trials and tribulations, this entertaining documentary captures the passion of Jewish singles looking for a match in today's America and the extent to which they will go to find a "catch." From Morristown, New Jersey to Crown Heights, Brooklyn to Dallas, Texas to San Diego, California, the film introduces viewers to diverse styles of matchmaking.  Witness a rabbi and rebbetzin's probing questions as they interview prospective clients the "old style" (but with a laptop); sit-in on a round table session with 24-enthusiastic suburban matchmakers as they ponder the dating lives of their clients; see how singles are searching and finding their Jewish better halves over the Internet. A film that brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Have I got a nice Jewish boy/girl for you!"

MINYAN IN KAIFENG
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 70 minutes
Written and Directed by Steven Calcote & Jonathan Shulman
Narrated by Leonard Nimoy
The last Rabbi of Kaifeng, China died well over a century ago. Now a group of modern Jewish expatriates seeks the remains of the ancient Jewish community that thrived there for hundreds of years. But, an unexpected gathering with the last descendants of the Kaifeng Jews transforms a celebration of Shabbat into an historical event. The arguments on identity and Diaspora that follow lead the Minyan to realize that their questions about the Jews of Kaifeng are also questions about themselves, and that these important questions have no easy answers.

NAJEEB: A PERSIAN GIRL IN AMERICA
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 28 minutes
English and Persian w/ English subtitles
Directed by Tanaz Eshaghian
"Najeeb" is a humorous narrative documentary about one young woman's conflict with her traditional Iranian-Jewish family's determination to get her married...now that she's almost over the hill at 25!

THE NEW KLEZMORIM
Documentary, Canada, 2000, 70 minutes
Directed by David Kaufman
A behind-the-scenes look at the 1998 KlezKanada Festival, a phenomenal gathering of international Klezmer musicians and singers. This engaging documentary features stellar performances and insightful interviews with some of the leading exponents of Yiddish music today: Michael Alpert, Alan Bern, Kurt Bjorling and Stuart Brotman (Brave Old World); Hankus Netsky (Klezmer Conservatory Band); Bruce Adler; Adrienne Cooper; Deborah Strauss; Jeff Warschauer and Josh Waletzky.

ONE DAY CROSSING
Drama, USA, 1999, 16mm, 25 minutes
Hungarian w/ English subtitles
Directed by Joan Stein
Budapest, October 1944. As the Hungarian Nazi movement Arrow Cross grows stronger, a young Jewish couple poses as Christians to protect their son.

PLAY FOR ME
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 28 minutes
English and Russian w/ English subtitles.
Directed by Jeremy Macey
"Play for Me" (or "Shpilt Mir" in Yiddish), focuses on a recent Klezmer Festival in St. Petersburg, Russia, to tell the story of the revival of Jewish folk music in the former Soviet Union. It includes interviews with and performances by the leading Jewish musicians in the region, as well as two Western musicians brought in as teachers.

POLA'S MARCH
Documentary, USA, 2001, video, 70 minutes
Directed by Jonathan Gruber
An inspirational documentary chronicling the emotional journey of Holocaust survivor Pola Susswein. Pola travels from Israel to Poland with 200 teenage students on the 'March of the Living' program, recounting the most intense experience of her life for the first time in fifty years. As the group visits Warsaw, Lublin and Krakow, as well as several notorious death camps, Pola struggles to relate and examine her past with extraordinary honesty, optimism and humility.  Archival concentration camp footage is not used; rather the film relies on contemporary scenes for its emotional power. Pola's March is a film about one woman's triumph over her past, and a unique and compelling portrait of a survivor today.

THE PURIMSPIEL
Drama, Poland, 2000, video, 57 minutes,
Polish w/ English subtitles
Directed by Izabella Cywinska
A dark satire about mistaken identity and stereotypes. The story revolves around a poor but proud labourer in Lodz, Poland. He loves his Polish identity and makes anti-Semitic assertions proudly. His son belittles anyone different from himself. His supportive wife remains silent. One day, however, he learns a secret that turns his world upside down; there is a fortune to be inherited from a distant relative waiting for him in America, but first he must return to his roots.

SIMON MANGUS
Drama, Great Britain, 1998, 35mm, 105 minutes
Directed by Ben Hopkins
Starring Noah Taylor (Shine), Ian Holm, Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner)
A fantastic, magical tale of a community and a character in crisis. Simon (Noah Taylor) lives in an isolated Jewish shtetle somewhere in central Europe during the nineteenth century. Disheveled and slightly mad, he's blamed for all the troubles that plague the community. Easily manipulated and beset by visions of the devil, he finds himself caught up in a conflict over ownership of a railway station that will affect both the shtetle and the nearby non- Jewish village. Hopkins brilliantly blends conflict and strife with a love story and social commentary.

STILL (Stille)
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 25 minutes
Directed by Wendy Oberlander
Still (Stille) looks back to the world of assimilated European Jews during the 1930s. Sixty years after the exile, Wendy Oberlander returned with her mother to Berlin - only to find the dissonance of her family's diaspora playing in real time. Still (Stille) transforms a collection of archival footage into an indelible montage of faces, piecing together the filmmaker's inheritance from her mother's story.

SUGIHARA: CONSPIRACY OF KINDNESS
Documentary, USA, video, 102 minutes
Directed by Robert Kirk
The Vancouver premiere of a remarkable, new feature-length documentary on Japanese diplomat, Chiune Sugihara. As a Japanese Consul in Lithuania, Sugihara risked his career and even his life by disobeying orders and writing exit visas for desperate Jewish families running from the approaching Nazi army. Incredibly, he single-handedly saved over 6000 Jews. The filmmakers achieved unprecedented access to Sugihara's family and their personal films, photos and papers, to create the definitive telling of this moving and inspirational story. The film also chronicles the fascinating relationship between the Japanese and the Jews during the 1930's and 40's. See also Visas and Virtue, 1998 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. 
See also Visas and Virtue, 1998 Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.

TIMBRELS & TORAHS: CELEBRATING WOMEN'S WISDOM
Documentary, USA, 2000, video, 36 minutes
Directed and produced by Miriam Chaya and Judith Montell
A groundbreaking film documenting Simchat Hochmah - a new rite of passage for women marking the journey from midlife to the elder years. Follow the stories of three women as they enter a new stage of life and redefine themselves in the Simchat Hochmah ceremony. With pride they celebrate the aging process, their personal spiritual journey and the wisdom they have gained from living. The film features music by Debbie Friedman and interviews with noted scholar and author Savina Teubal, creator of the ritual, Blu Greenberg, Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell and author Marcia Cohn Spiegel.

THE TRAVELLERS: THIS IS YOUR LAND
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 75 minutes
Directed by Robert Cohen
The popular folk group, The Travellers, have been together in one form or another since 1952. The founding members, Jerry Goodis, Sid Dolgay, Jerry Gray and his sister Helen, were originally singers in the United Jewish Peoples Order (UJPO). With prodding from folk icon Pete Seeger, they made their debut as The Travellers at the Chelsea Club in Toronto in 1954. By 1957, they were appearing on CBC Television and had recorded their first album, 'Across Canada With The Travellers' which featured their signature song, a Canadian version of a Woodie Guthrie tune, "This Land is Your Land." The Travellers made groundbreaking impact on Canada's popular culture of the 1950's and 60's. Their rise from poor Jewish communist activists to Canadian musical ambassadors to the world has remained a hidden gem - until now.

UNTYING THE BONDS: JEWISH DIVORCE
Documentary, Canada, video, 40 minutes
By denying a "get" (Jewish divorce) a vindictive husband can effectively prevent his estranged wife from remarrying within the Jewish community. Although it can be argued that it was intended to provide a reasonable means of separation and renewal after divorce, in reality the halakhic (Jewish legal) system can also provide men with a means to subject a woman to emotional blackmail and marital limbo. Although not common, these incidents have been rising in number and have given impetus to a number of organizations in Canada and the US which provide support to agunot (women denied a Jewish divorce) and lobby for change. The film features and was written by Dr. Norma Baumel Joseph, who also consulted on the documentary, Half the Kingdom.

VULCAN JUNCTION
Drama, Israel, 1999, 35mm, 98 minutes
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Directed by Eran Riklis
A perceptive human drama from by the director of Zohar and Cup Final. Michael and Danny lead a rock band called the Genetic Code. They aspire to greatness, but play at the local pub owned by Jimmy Smith, a burned out ex-American. Avi hopes to play for the Ajax soccer team in Amsterdam. Dalia, his ambitious and bright girlfriend must choose between family and a career as journalist at a left wing newspaper. Vulcan Junction is a nostalgic trip back in time to the days just prior to the Yom Kippur war. The soundtrack features some of the best of 70's classic rock including Deep Purple, The Animals, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, and The Zombies.

WANDERINGS: POSTCARDS FROM THE DIASPORA
Documentary, Canada, 2001, video, 52 minutes
Directed by Nikila Cole
"Wanderings" follows the travels of Vancouver filmmaker Nikila Cole and her 13-yr. old daughter Sarah, as they explore the remaining trails of 4,000 years of Jewish settlements throughout the Diaspora. Jewish communities in Asia, North America, the Caribbean, Europe, Spain and India are visited in a kind of travelling 'Bat Mitzvah.' The film provides entertaining and compelling insights into Jewish life around the world, and conveys a personal journey between mother and daughter.

 

2000

These are the films that played during the 12th Annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival. They are listed in alphabetical order.

17 RUE ST. FIACRE
France, 1999, 24 minutes, video
Director/Producer: Daniel Meyers
This documentary tells the story of Rachel and Leon, two young Jewish siblings who were sheltered by a working class family in the Nazi-occupied town of Compiegne, France during World War II. The children's parents never returned and they were "adopted" into the Catholic family. These two children were the only Jews to survive the entire war in Compiegne, and now live in the United States. The film revolves around the return of Rachel and Leon to Compiegne for their "adopted" mother's 90th birthday party. We see interviews with all the surviving principals in the story, Rachel and Leon visiting the old apartment from which their parents were deported, and a scene at the birthday party. The story is framed in its historical context by narration, archival photographs and family home movie footage. A moving, personal story of courage and memory recommended for children as well as adults.

94 YEARS AND 1 NURSING HOME LATER
USA, 1999, 41 minutes, video
Directed by Laurel Greenberg
This important documentary begins when filmmaker Laurel Greenberg watches some home movies that her father shot of his mother in a Philadelphia nursing home. "Do you like it here?" Marvin asks his mother, Belle. Her weak smile and feigned enthusiasm seem to satisfy Marvin, yet are disturbing to Laurel who set out to discover her grandmother's true feelings. An immigrant from Russia, Belle Greenberg built her whole life around caring for her family. How did she come to be alone and isolated from this family at the end of her life? Laurel's search for understanding delves into the relationships and changing roles of parents and children.

AARON COHEN'S DEBT
Israel, 1999, 96 minutes, video
Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Directed by Amalia Margolin
A cheerful birthday party is interrupted by the arrival of the police. They have come for the honouree himself, Aaron Cohen. Bewildered and annoyed, Aaron is informed that he owes child support. Although to the best of his knowledge, such debt doesn't exist, the police march him off to local jail. Despite his frail health and his daughter's frantic efforts to bail him out, Aaron is forced to spend the night behind bars. Indifferent guards, an over-crowded cell and an infected ulcer thrust Aaron into a Kafkaesque nightmare. Past, present and future blend in an intricate telling of this award-winning drama.  Winner,  Best Made-for-TV Movie, 1999 Banff Television Festival.

AFTER THE END OF THE WORLD
Bulgaria, 1998, 108 minutes, colour, 35mm
Bulgarian with English subtitles
Directed by Ivan Nichev
When Albert ("Berto") Cohen, an Israeli professor of Byzantine history, returns to Bulgaria to present a lecture, he begins a sentimental journey into the past. In the town of his birth, the southern Bulgarian village of Plovdiv, he runs into his first love, Araxi Wartanyan. The film moves between the present and the past as the two of them recall childish pranks and the friendly relations between Bulgarians, Armenians, Turks, Jews, Gypsies and Greeks, which endured until Stalin's purges. Despite the years of separation, they grow closer together until a new threat emerges: ruthless land speculators, who want Cohen's family house and studio and will stop at nothing. One of the best films from Bulgaria in years. Stars leading Bulgarian actor, Stefan Danailov.

BLUE AND WHITE IN RED SQUARE
Israel, 1999, 60 minutes, video
Hebrew and Russian w/ English subtitles
Directed by Elan Frank
On July 15, 1998, 1,000 young musicians representing 11 youth philharmonic orchestras from around the world, gathered in Moscow to form the "Orchestra of the World." Among the performers were the members of the Young Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, many of whom were born in the Soviet Union. For most, the trip represented the first return to their former homeland after years of living in Israel. Director Frank draws us into their stories and insights as they discuss the difficulties of being Jewish in former Soviet Russia, mixed feelings in seeing old friends and homes, and the challenges they faced in making a new life in Israel.  Silver Award, Documentary category, Houston International Film festival 2000.

CHILDREN OF CHABANNES
USA, 1999, 92 minutes, 16mm
Directed by Lisa Gossels and Dean Wetherell
A tale of courage, resilience and love set during the Second World War, "The Children of Chabannes" tells the story of how the people of Chabannes, a tiny village in unoccupied France, chose action over indifference and saved the lives of 400 Jewish refugee children. Filmmaker Gossels returns to Chabannes with her father and uncle, two of the 400 children who were saved. Through intimate interviews, the filmmakers recreate the joys and fears of daily life in the village. But this oasis of hope is shattered in August of 1942 when the war reached the doorsteps of the château where the children lived. This lyrical and moving film shows the remarkable efforts made by the citizens of Chabannes, who risked their lives and livelihoods to protect these children, simply because they felt it was the right thing to do.  Official Web site.

COLOR OF JEWISH
USA/Israel, 1996, 26 minutes, video
English with Amharic and Hebrew w/subtitles
Directed by Pamela Love
A documentary on the Ethiopian Jews who made the transition from simple mud and dung huts to Israel's westernized culture. The film examines the changes in religious practice and leadership affecting the Ethiopian community in Israel through interviews with Ethiopians and older Israelis. The film reveals problems similar for all recent immigrants: the struggle to maintain one's culture in a new land.

FAREWELL
Russia, 1992, 27 minutes, 35mm,B&W
Directed by Arkadiy Yakhnis
Russian w/ English subtitles
This short documentary chronicles a 90-year old man's emigration to Israel from his native shtetl in Bessabaria. Yakhnis' beautifully photographed film poetically captures the end of a rich Jewish heritage in Russia.  Jurors' Choice Award, 1998 Jewish Video Competition, Judah L. Magnes Museum.

GIRAFFE
Germany, 1998, 107 minutes, 35mm
German w/English subtitles
Directed by Dani Levy
An arson-related fire destroys a Jewish-owned chocolate factory in Germany. Shortly after, an elderly Jewish woman is found dead in the corridor of a New York apartment building. Her son David, a street smart garment trader in Brooklyn, meets Lena Katz, the granddaughter of the factory owner, who also appears to be involved in the mysterious circumstances of his mother's death. In the course of the investigation, a mutual attraction grows, but the suspicions of David's sleazy lawyer Kaminsky threaten to undermine their relationship. "The Giraffe" is a sexy thriller that links events from the past with the present, pitting generations and cultures against each other in its search for the truth. Produced by X-Film Creative Pool, which released the smash-hit "Run Lola Run" last year, and starring Levi and renowned German actress, Maria Schrader, who co-wrote the script.

INSIDE OUT
South Africa, 1998, 104 minutes, 35mm
Directed by Neil Sundstrom
South African comedian Gilda Blacher stars as Hazel Levin, a young Jewish actress from Johannesburg stranded in a small Karoo town when her car breaks down. Recognized from a television commercial, Hazel finds herself invited to direct the town's nativity play! Hazel is in a predicament, she's unemployed, she's broke and worse, must face her Mother's "I told you so" attitude. She must also deal with some openly antagonistic townsfolk - not only because she's Jewish, but also because of her attempts to involve the black community in the production. "Inside Out" is a gentle, romantic tale of love, tolerance, tragedy and triumph that explores, often with hilarious results, the changing face of South Africa.

JEWS AND BUDDISM
USA, 1999, 41 minutes, video
Directed by Bill Chayes
Jews and Buddhism examines the dramatic surge of interest among North American Jews in the spiritual teachings of Buddhism. Jews, who make up 2% of the population, account for around 30% of non-Asian American Buddhists. Jews and Buddhism is the first film to interrogate this phenomenon in depth, explore it in the context of 20th Century Jewish-American life and consider its impact on contemporary Jewish thought and practice. This award winning documentary includes rare footage of the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet, as well as David Ben Gurion, Alan Ginsberg and many others. Narrated by Sharon Stone.

LA MOHEL
USA, 1999, 30 minutes, video
Directed by David Bezmozgis
This upbeat, often-humorous film presents three busy mohels - Jewish ritual circumcisers - as they practice their ancient profession in modern Los Angeles. One is a young doctor with a flair for show business ("Mohel to the Stars"), one is a nurse midwife with a spiritual bent and the third is an orthodox Rabbi. All three illustrate and explain how this 3700-year-old ritual is an occasion to celebrate and how Jews of various backgrounds express their identity, their faith and their family ties in these early moments of life.  1st Place, Student Category, Judah L. Magnes Video Competition 1999.

LA TERZA LUNA (The Third Moon)
Italy/Switzerland, 1997, 85 minutes, 35mm
Italian w/English subtitles
Directed by Matteo Bellinelli
Set in present-day Venice, the film tells the story of young architect, Luca Fabiani, who has come to restore a palazzo near the old Jewish Quarter. There he discovers Elio Sorani, a once famous Jewish writer who has been hiding from the outside world for years, lost in his childhood memories of the Venetian Ghetto during the Second World War. Elio's only contact with reality is Guilia, a mysterious woman to whom Luca is soon attracted. For the director Matteo Bellinelli, "La Terza Luna" is a film about chance and fate, in which dreams alternate with reality, and irony with tenderness."

LIFE AND TIMES OF HANK GREENBERG
USA, 1999, 95 minutes, 16mm
Directed by Aviva Kempner
In the 1930s Jewish Mothers would ask their sons: "What kind of day did Hank have?" Hank Greenberg, the Detroit Tigers slugger who came close to breaking Babe Ruth's home run record, was baseball's first Jewish star. Tall (6'4"), handsome and uncommonly good-natured, Greenberg was a secular Jew from the Bronx who became "the baseball Moses," an icon for everyone from Walter Matthau ("I joined the Beverly Hills tennis club to eat lunch with him. I don't even play tennis") to Alan Dershowitz ("I thought he'd become the first Jewish President"). Aviva Kempner's loving tribute is chock full of wonderful archival footage from the '30s and '40s and interviews with a self-effacing Greenberg and many of his Tiger teammates. www.hankgreenbergfilm.org.

MAKING A KILLING
UK, 1998, 52 minutes, video
Produced by Anne Webber
A compelling detective story about one family's 50-year quest to recover their missing art collection set against a background of murder, greed and corruption. In 1943 Friedrich and Louise Gutmann, members of a prominent German-Jewish banking family living in Holland, refused to sign over their valuable collection to the Nazis. They were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, interrogated and murdered. Their house was stripped bare. After the war the Gutmanns' children, Lili and Bernard, searched unsuccessfully for the stolen art. In 1994 Bernard's sons took up the mission, joined by art hunter Willi Korte. The story culminates in the discovery of a stolen Degas painting and the controversial legal battle to reclaim it, revealing the complicity of the international art world, dealers, auction houses, curators and museums in the trade and acquisition of Nazi plunder.

NOTHING TO BE WRITTEN HERE
Canada, 1996, 47 minutes, video
Directed by Wendy Oberlander
Artfully mixing personal narrative, historical fact and striking imagery, "Nothing to be Written Here" traces Oberlander's discovery of her father's wartime experience. As a Jewish teenager, Peter Oberlander was exiled from Austria in 1938, interned in Britain and transferred to Canada in 1940. For years he was confined in prison camps in eastern Canada, one of over 2,000 German and Austrian Jewish refugees regarded as 'dangerous enemy aliens,' and held behind the same barbed wire that imprisoned their persecutors, the Nazi POW's. Oberlander's insightful and very personal film received the First Place Award for Holocaust Biography from the Judah L. Magnes Museum.

PURPLE LAWNS
Israel, 1998, 56 minutes, video
Hebrew w/English subtitles
Directed by Dina Zvi-Riklis
Yael and Shlomit, two secular, free-spirited women, share a flat in Tel Aviv. Their high rent forces them to take in a third roommate, Malka, an enigmatic ultra-orthodox woman. Malka's insistence on living with two secular women touches Yael's heart but arouses Shlomit's suspicions. As Yael is drawn to the mysterious Malka, Shlomit grows increasingly jealous of the relationship that forms between the two and begins to trail Malka. Slowly, with many twists and turns, Malka's secret is revealed. The film tells the story of an intimate bond between women from different worlds.

ROSENZWEIG'S FREEDOM
Germany, 1998, 90 minutes, 35mm
German w/English subtitles
Directed by Liliane Targownik
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.

SABBATH IN PARADISE
Germany, 1997, 85 minutes, colour and black & white, 16mm
English
Directed by Claudia Heuermann
Klezmer, traditional European Jewish music, is currently enjoying great popularity, but what is Klezmer? What is actually happening today in the contemporary Jewish music scene? Intertwined with a reading of the Yiddish folktale, "Sabbath in Paradise", are performances and interviews with musicians representing the full range of modern Klezmer, from radical John Zorn to traditionalist Andy Statman. They attempt to define and explain Jewish music, and in so doing reveal aspects of their own Jewish identities and personal relationships with community and Torah. The film also features New York musicians Michael Alpert, David Krakauer, Anthony Coleman, Marc Ribot, Roy Nathanson, Harvey Pekar and Frank London.

TOO EARLY TO BE QUIET, TOO LATE TO SING
Israel, 1995, 53 minutes, video
Yiddish and Hebrew w/English subtitles
Directed by Chava Alberstein
A flourishing Yiddish culture of poetry, music, drama and literature came to an abrupt end with the Holocaust. A small core of survivors, spread out among communities of the United States, Canada, Argentina and Israel, continued to create in Yiddish after the Second World War. Now, 50 years later, only a few Yiddish poets remain alive, most of them in Israel. Chava Alberstein, "the First Lady of Israeli Song," set out to interview these last writers of Yiddish poetry to hear their poems and stories. Along the way, she sings a superb collection of Yiddish folk songs. With 45 albums to her name, Alberstein is probably the only singer in the world whose repertoire of Yiddish songs is of such authenticity.

TREYF
USA, 1998, 55 minutes, video
Directed by Alisa Lebow and Cynthia Madansky
Treyf - unkosher in Yiddish - is an unorthodox documentary by and about two Jewish lesbians who met and fell in love at a Passover seder. With personal narration, real and imagined educational films, and haunting imagery the filmmakers examine the Jewish identity of their upbringings and its impact on their lives. A reflection on culture, community and individual desire, this witty film follows the filmmakers as they discover what they thought was most profoundly Treyf about their worldviews still has roots in Jewish history.  Chicago Film Festival, Certificate of Merit; NY Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Special Jury Prize.

UNCLE CHATZKEL
Australia, 1999, 52 minutes, video
Directed by Rod Freeman
Chatzkel Lemchen has lived through the Russian revolution, two world wars, a communist regime and the transition of Lithuania from Soviet Republic to an independent state. During the Holocaust, the Nazis and their Lithuanian supporters killed Chatzkel's parents and children. He and his wife were sent to separate concentration camps in Germany. Chatzkel survived through his skills as a linguist and lexicographer, eventually receiving his country's highest honours for his work in preserving the Lithuanian language.  One of seven siblings, Chatzkel was the only member of his family to remain in Lithuania. His relatives half a world away in Australia were barely even aware of him. When they finally do meet, it is a deeply moving experience that raises questions about identity, connection and rediscovering family roots.

VIEHJUD LEVI (Jew-Boy Levi)
Germany, 1999, 97 minutes, 35mm
German w/English subtitles
Directed by Didi Danquart
Based on the acclaimed play by German writer Thomas Strittmatter, Veihjud Levi is the story of a friendly Jewish cattle merchant in Germany's Black Forest. Vieuhjud is an old, derogatory word for a Jew in the cattle trade. It's 1935 and an ambitious railroad engineer and his manipulative mistress have arrived from Berlin. Spreading lies and threats, they soon have the townspeople turning against each other, especially against Levi, who just returned to the town with intentions to romance Lisbeth, the Catholic daughter of one of his clients. The familiar old traditions begin to collapse, swastikas appear at the tavern and life in the town will never be the same. A compelling and disturbing look at events that preceded the Holocaust; director Danquart deftly avoids simple clichés in his depiction of the complex beginnings of Germany's slide into moral darkness. Stars German actress, Eva Mattes, of Fassbinder fame, as Frau Horger.

VILLIAGE OF IDIOTS
Canada, 1999, 12 minutes, 35mm
Directed by Eugene Federenko and Rose Newlove
Weary of daily life in his native village of Chelm, Shmendrik sets out on a quest for knowledge that brings him to a new Chelm, a place remarkably like the old Chelm, down to the chickens' reminiscent clucks. Based on the Yiddish folk tale and adapted by Vancouverite John Lazarus, the film offers an extremely funny take on our tendency to romanticize what we don't have.

VOYAGES
France, 1999, 124 minutes, 35mm
French, Yiddish, Hebrew w/English subtitles
Directed by Emmanuel Finkiel
"Voyages" is a story of three women told in three parts. Rivka is a 65-year-old French Holocaust survivor, living in Israel. She and her husband have joined a tour group from Warsaw to Auschwitz. Regine, living alone in Paris, receives an unexpected call from an elderly Russian man claiming to be her long-lost father. When they meet, he barely recognizes her. Is he really her father? Vera, an 85-year-old Russian woman who has recently immigrated to Israel, is looking for a cousin she has not seen in years. She's surprised that there are Jews in Israel who do not speak Yiddish, but is able to find her way using Russian and French. These seemingly unrelated stories are told linearly, but connect to the past, and each other. A moving, yet never melodramatic, exploration of the displacement of lives that resulted from the Holocaust; the film gracefully reveals characters and story as it moves between three countries on two continents.  Prix de la Jeunesse, Cannes Film Festival 1999; Best First Film, César Awards (French Academy Awards) 1999.

WEDDING IN GALILEE
Belgium/West Germany, 1987, 116 minutes
Arabic and Hebrew w/ English subtitles
Directed by Michel Khleifi
The elder of a Palestinian village in Israel is given permission to hold a traditional wedding for his son on the condition that the Israeli military governor and his staff be guests of honour at the ceremony.

WOMEN OF THE WALL
USA, 1999, 31 minutes, 16mm
Directed by Faye Lederman
Since 1989, a group of Jewish immigrant women, both Orthodox and Reform, have fought against Orthodox restrictions prohibiting them from leading prayer, wearing prayer shawls and head coverings and reading from the Torah at the Kotel ("Western Wall"). Through interviews with the women in the group and Israeli religious and political leaders, we are offered insight into the diverse religious interpretations of Judaism in Israel.

YANA'S FRIENDS
Israel, 1999, 90 minutes, 35mm
Hebrew and Russian w/English subtitles
Directed by Arik Kaplun
Yana is young, beautiful and pregnant and has just been abandoned by her husband in the midst of the Gulf War. Having recently arrived in Israel from Russia, she barely speaks Hebrew and must struggle with cultural differences and no income. She shares a flat in Tel Aviv with Eli, a 20-something Israeli wedding photographer with a passion for casual sex. Eli is also a professional voyeur who cannot resist capturing Yana on video. When the threat from Sadam Hussain's poison gas missiles forces them both into the same sealed bedroom, sparks fly and love blossoms.  Winner of 10 Israeli Academy Awards including Best Picture, 1999; Grand Prix, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1999; Wolgin Award & Honourable Mention, Jerusalem Film Festival 1999.

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