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 Pleasantville, NY - The Jacob Burns Film Center (JBFC) has announced the schedule of films, speakers and special events for the Westchester Jewish Film Festival which will run from March 12 to April 2 at the Film Center in Pleasantville.
For the seventh consecutive year, the American Jewish Committee (AJC), Westchester Chapter, will sponsor the festival in association with The Jewish Week. Corporate sponsors include Ganer, Grossbach and Ganer, LLC Certified Public Accountants, and Robison Oil, Gas, Air Conditioning.
The 29 films in the festival cover a broad spectrum of both narrative and documentary films from around the world and were programmed by Steve Apkon, Executive Director of the Film Center and Brian Ackerman, Programming Director of the Film Center. Two strong themes emerged from the films that are in the three week series: a hopeful vision of a world united despite differences and the Jewish community and history that run against stereotypes.
All events are $6 (members)/$10 (nonmembers) except where noted. Tickets are available for sale after February 20 either online at www.burnsfilmcenter.org or at the box office which opens at 4pm on weekdays and 11am on weekends. Group sales are available for groups of 20 or more by calling Julia Rosen at 914-773-7663 ext. 410.
Listed below are the films, speaker events and receptions:
THE GIFT TO STALIN
*March 12: 7:15, March 15: 7:30
*Opening Night with Reception
A true story of a Jewish boy’s exile to the hinterlands of Kazakhstan in 1949. He is raised by the gruff Kasym, who is Muslim, and Verka, who is Christian. Steeped in dazzling images, this is a film of extraordinary beauty and emotion. Rustem Abdrashev. 2008. 97 m. NR. Kazakhstan/Russia/Poland/Israel, in Kazakh/Russian with subtitles.
Tickets: $10 (members), $15 (nonmembers)
LEMON TREE
March 13: 5:05, March 14: 7:15
The story of a border conflict between a Palestinian widow with a generations-old lemon grove and the Israeli defense minister who wants the trees removed. A fictional microcosm of the Israeli/Palestinian struggle features exceptional performances and a welcome touch of optimism. Eran Riklis. 2008. 106 m. NR. Israel/Germany/France, in Arabic/Hebrew with subtitles.
LOST ISLANDS
March 13: 7:15, March 17: 5:00
A semi-autobiographical comedy drama about a rambunctious, quarrelsome family in 1980s Israel. It’s a coming-of-age story about twin brothers and their competition for the attentions of a single girl, a film that’s more serious than it first may appear. Reshef Levy. 2008. 103 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
EMPTY NEST
March 13: 9:15, March 19: 5:00
A sharply observed family drama, this is the story of a cultured, prosperous, and apparently enviable middle-aged Buenos Aires couple. But when their youngest daughter moves to Israel to live with her husband, the apartment is suddenly very empty, and the subtle balance of their marriage is thrown off kilter. Daniel Burman. 2008. 91 m. NR. Argentina/Spain/France/Italy, in Spanish/Hebrew with subtitles.
WAITING FOR ARMAGEDDON
March 14: 1:45, March 15: 2:15, March 18: 7:30*
Fifty million Americans count themselves as part of the evangelical community that believes in the
Rapture and Armageddon. This documentary takes us from Connecticut to Oregon, inside the living rooms of those citizens who find the world laden with signs pointing to the End of Times, when Israel will stand at center stage. As they describe impending global doom with unnerving optimism, they hold Israel and the Jewish people in a strange embrace, donating more than $75 million annually to the country. Kate Davis/David Heilbroner/Franco Sacchi. 2008. 74 m. NR. US.
*Q&A: Gary Greenebaum and Gary Rosenblatt, with RECEPTION
Rabbi Gary Greenebaum is the U.S. Director for Interreligious Affairs for the AJC. Gary Rosenblatt is editor/publisher of The Jewish Week.
Cosponsored by The Jewish Week and the AJC
Tickets: $9 (members), $13 (nonmembers)
HOLY LAND HARDBALL
March 14: 5:30, March 17: 7:30*
Bostonian Larry Baras figured that after 5,767 years, it was finally time to create a professional baseball league in Israel. After recruiting a diverse collection of executives and ballplayers, Baras next had to deal with a public completely unfamiliar with the game, a skeptical Israeli media, delayed stadium preparations, and customs snafus. Brett Rapkin/Erik Kesten. 2008. 75 m. NR. US.
*Q&A: Filmmaker Erik Kesten, ballplayers Nate Fish (3B, Tel Aviv Lightning), Scott Perlman (P, Bet Shemesh Blue Sox), Dan Rootenberg (P, Netanya Tigers), and baseball historian Joseph Wallace.
IN SEARCH OF MEMORY: The Neuroscientist Eric Kandel
March 14: 3:30, March 24: 7:30*
Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel is one of the 20th century’s most important researchers about memory and its foundations in the brain. This documentary is not only an exploration into the science of memory, it is also a trip into the Kandel’s past as a Jew growing up in Vienna in the 1930s. Kandel is an ebullient narrator as he visits Austria for the first time since WWII, taking his children to the places of his youth. Petra Seeger. 2008. 95 m. NR. Austria/Germany/US, in German/English with subtitles.
*Q&A: Neuroscientist Eric Kandel is the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology, the Lasker Award, and the Wolf Prize.
THE BEETLE
March 14: 9:30, March 16: 7:15
A funny and touching film that hovers somewhere between documentary and narrative. Director Orian is about to become a father. Much to his wife’s chagrin, his attachment to incipient parenthood is weaker than his love for his dilapidated VW Beetle, which is unsafe to drive and too expensive to fix. He sets out on a journey to uncover the car’s rich history—with delightful and unexpected results. Yishai Orian. 2008. 70 m. NR. Israel, in English/Hebrew/Arabic with subtitles.
FATHER’S FOOTSTEPS
March 15: 12:05, March 21: 4:00
A sharp, sometimes funny family drama about a Tunisian Jewish family that comes to France to seek its fortune. The father finds that he must resort to a life of crime, and when he gets in over his head, his wife has to summon the strength to hold the family together. Told through the eyes of the 11-year-old son, this is a fable of the immigrant experience and a son’s unending adoration of his father. Marco Carmel. 2007. 95 m. NR. France/Israel, in French with subtitles.
THE FIRST BASKET
March 15: 4:45*, March 24: 5:00, March 26: 5:00
Nat Holman, Sammy Kaplan, Red Auerbach, and other children of European Jewish immigrants don’t get much recognition as basketball players, but they were the earliest stars of the game. And an obscure player for the New York Knickerbockers, Ossie Schectman, scored the first basket in what would eventually become the NBA. This documentary is the first to examine the role of Jewish players in basketball’s evolution and the impact of the game on the assimilation of American Jews. David Vyorst. 2007. 86 m. NR. US.
with
Snapshots: Maccabi Tel-Aviv, 1977
The most magical year of all in Israeli basketball is re-enacted here. The fabulous basketball team beats the Russian giant, CSKA Moscow, and brings home the European Cup for the first time ever. Dov Gil-Har/Uri Rozen. 2008. Approx. 10 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
*Q&A: David Vyorst, with RECEPTION
Filmmaker David Vyorst is a lifetime New York Knicks fan. This is his first film.
Tickets: $12 (members), $16 (nonmembers)
CYCLES
March 16: 5:15, March 21: 7:45
Things are coming at Judith from all directions: Just as her son is ready to head off on his own, her Holocaust-survivor mother begins to slip into dementia. This beautiful first feature is a rich interweaving of family life following three generations of Parisian Jews at the crossroads. An impressive cast anchors this complex and satisfying film. Cyril Gelblat. 2008. 92 m. NR. France/Switzerland/Germany, in French with subtitles.
BON-PAPA, A MAN UNDER GERMAN OCCUPATION
March 18: 5:15, March 21: 6:00
In a gorgeously shot, meditative documentary, the director sets out to explore the mystery of her non-Jewish paternal grandfather and the strange family silence surrounding his activity in Vichy, France, during the War. On the maternal side of her family, both grandparents were victims of the Holocaust. A soul-searching film, where responsibility for the past must be weighed against the reality of kin and blood. Leïla Férault. 2007. 69 m. NR. France, in French with subtitles.
WHAT IF? THE HELENA MAYER STORY
March 19: 7:30*
Helena Mayer was a German Jew who won the gold medal for Germany in the 1928 Olympics. In the early ’30s Mayer moved to the US after she was kicked out of a German fencing club because of her Jewish background. Yet when Nazi Germany asked her to represent the regime again in the 1936 Olympics, her agreement helped to whitewash Nazi racial policies. Why did she do it? Semyon Pinkhasov. 2008. 47 m. NR. US.
*Q&A: Semyon Pinkhasov, John Nonna, Jonathan Wachtel
Filmmaker Semyon Pinkhasov coached the US fencing teams for the 1983 and 1987 Pan American Games, the 1984 Olympics, and the 1981 and 1985 Maccabiah Games. John Nonna, Westchester County Legislator competed on the 1972 and 1980 US Olympic fencing teams. Jonathan Wachtel, a producer at Fox News, was a consultant on the film.
AT HOME IN UTOPIA
March 20: 5:15, *March 23: 5:00
Founded by Russian Jewish immigrants in 1925, the Bronx housing “coops” were an oasis of progressive social values and radical ideals where Yiddish was taught after school and racial integration was not only preached but practiced. A mini-history of the Left in America, as the “coops” fell prey to dissension and defection—but not before leaving an influential legacy. Michal Goldman. 2008. 57 m. NR. US.
with
Yosl Cutler and His Puppets
Cartoonist, artist, writer, poet, and Yiddish Art Theater designer Yosl Cutler was also a master puppeteer. Here he performs with marionettes he designed and brought to life. Restored print with new subtitles. Joseph Burstyn. 1935. 18 m. NR. US, in Yiddish with subtitles.
A ROAD TO MECCA: The Journey of Muhammad Asad
March 20: 7:15, March 21: 9:40, March 23: 7:30
The story of Leopold Weiss, a Viennese Talmudic scholar and descendant of Orthodox rabbis who in 1921 rejected Western materialism and became Muhammad Asad, one of the most influential Muslim scholars of the 20th century. He was an advisor to the king of Saudi Arabia, the first Pakistani ambassador to the UN, the author of the best-known English translation of the Koran, and a firm believer in Islam as a religion of pluralism and tolerance. A story that challenges all sides to reconsider their essential connections. Georg Misch. 2008. 92 m. NR. Austria, in English/German/ Urdu/Ukrainian/Spanish/Arabic with subtitles.
TWO LIVES PLUS ONE
March 20: 9:15, March 21: 2:00
A warm, wonderful, and comic film. Parisian Eliane Weiss, who, overwhelmed by her life, work, and family decides to become a serious writer—but then how things change. What happened to the attentive mother, selfless teacher, devoted wife, friend, and good Jewish daughter?
Idit Cébula. 2007. 90 m. NR. France, in French with subtitles.
THE WOMAN FROM SARAJEVO
March 22: 12:30*, March 25: 7:30**
A true story about Zineba Hardaga the first Muslim woman in Israel to be honored as “Righteous Among the Nations,” for hiding the Jewish Kabilio family in her Sarajevo home during World War II. Fifty years later it’s Zineba who needs to be rescued from the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia and so the Kabilios arrange to bring her to Israel where Zineba’s daughter converts to Judaism and now works in Yad Vashem, while her brother moves to Mexico and converts to Catholicism.
Ella Alterman. 2007. 66 m. NR. Israel, in Serbian/English/Hebrew with subtitles.
with
Snapshots: The Blind Boy
Photographer David Rubinger meets the blind boy he photographed as a new immigrant from Morocco in 1957. The image of the boy touching a relief map of Israel has never been forgotten. Dov Gil-Har/Uri Rozen. 2008. Approx. 10 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
*Q&A: Ruth Diskin, leading Israeli film distributor.
**Q&A: David Harris, with RECEPTION
David Harris has been the AJC executive director since 1990.
Tickets: $9 (members), $13 (nonmembers)
$9.99
March 22: 3:00
A visually arresting stop-motion animated feature for adults full of quirky characters and sharp dialogue. Tatia Rosenthal. 2008. 78 m. NR. Israel, in English.
Q&A: Etgar Keret, is a best-selling Israeli writer and filmmaker. He wrote the screenplay for $9.99 and codirected and appeared in Jellyfish.
BEING JEWISH IN FRANCE
March 22: 5:45
Beginning with cries of “Vive la France” in Yiddish, this documentary explores the rich and complex history of Jews in France—the first country to grant Jews citizenship. Interviews, rare news footage, and photos help illuminate the Dreyfus Affair, WWII, the absorption of Sephardic Jews from Arab countries in the 1960s, charges of rising anti-Semitism, and the country’s complex attitudes toward Israel. Yves Jeuland. 2007. 185 m. NR. France, in French with subtitles.
Tickets: $9 (members), $13 (nonmembers)
AMOS OZ
March 26: 7:30
A poignant portrait of internationally acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz, one of the country’s most fiercely eloquent proponents of peaceful coexistence in the Middle East. As he reflects on present-day Israel, Oz traces his life and influences back to the lost world of cosmopolitan Salonica, where his father grew up speaking 12 languages, and where, before the Shoah, Jews had lived for 500 years. Stelios Charalampopoulos. 2008. 52 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew/English with subtitles.
BOOK SALON Stay after the screening for a discussion about Amos Oz hosted by
professor Shuki Cohen, who leads book talks at Dor Chadash and other institutions
in New York. RECOMMENDED READING: Check our website for a link to the Amos Oz
story “Waiting,” which appeared in The New Yorker on Dec. 12, 2008.
PRAYING IN HER OWN VOICE
March 27: 9:00, March 28: 7:40, March 31: 7:30*
For a decade, the Women of the Wall movement has spearheaded the battle for Jewish women’s equality, focusing on the Wailing Wall, where only men are permitted to pray. Chronicling the legal challenge before the Israeli Supreme Court, as well as the tense confrontations at the Wall itself, this film is an opening to a needed conversation within the religious Jewish world.
Yael Katzir. 2007. 60 m. NR. Israel, in English/Hebrew with subtitles.
with
Snapshots: The Paratroopers, 1967
The paratroopers return to the Western Wall to reconstruct the moment they raised the Israeli flag during the Six Day War. Dov Gil-Har/Uri Rozen. 2008. Approx. 10 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
*Q&A: Mimi Alperin, with RECEPTION
Mimi Alperin, chair of AJC’s Board of Governors, will moderate a discussion on the place
women in the religious Jewish world.
Tickets: $9 (members), $13 (nonmembers)
HUGO 2
March 27: 7:15, March 29: 7:45
Two decades ago, filmmaker Yair Lev made Hugo, a film about his father, a survivor of Auschwitz, in which the older man revealed his most passionate belief: “It is most important for a man to be strong.” Hugo 2 is the result of his ruminations about his thin and frail son: Would he have survived his grandfather’s experience? A moving film that captures the inherited past and its implications, from survivor to child to grandchild. Yair Lev. 2008. 70 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
LAKE 68
March 27: 5:30, April 1: 7:30*
A wave of anti-Semitism forced members of the Polish communist elite, who barely considered themselves Jewish, to emigrate in 1968. Before they left they spent their last weeks crowded into a lake house in a small village, the home of the filmmaker’s father. Now she and others return to confront their memories. The lazy sounds of summer are the backdrop to a discussion of complex history and ideas: about family, Marxism, Judaism, and lost childhood. Irit Shamgar. 2008. 59 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew/Polish with subtitles.
*Q&A: Andrzej Krakowski is a filmmaker and chair of Media and Communication Arts and professor of Film & Video at CCNY. He was born in Poland and left in 1968.
THE WAVE
March 28: 5:30, March 31: 5:00
Based on actual events in a 1967 Palo Alto high school, this is the story of a lesson gone awry in modern-day Berlin. When a charismatic teacher reformulates his class as a dictatorship to better engage his students in an exercise about the roots of fascism, he—and we—are stunned at their receptive response, which gains momentum and takes on a life of its own. Dennis Gansel. 2008. 93 m. NR. Germany, in German with subtitles.
MAX MINSKY AND ME
March 28: 3:30, March 30: 7:15, April 1: 5:00
For Nelly, life has always been about studying, but when she learns that her school basketball team is going abroad to compete, she defies every rule of adolescence to fling aside her geeky image and jump on the court. She gets Max Minsky to teach her basketball in exchange for help with his schoolwork, and an unlikely friendship forms. Meanwhile, all her parents want her to do is prepare for her bat mitzvah. Anna Justice. 2007. 94 m. NR. Germany, in German with subtitles.
WAVES OF FREEDOM
March 28: 2:00, March 30: 5:30, April 2: 7:30*
In late 1946, word went out in New York and Chicago that young Jewish men with sailing experience were needed to help smuggle Holocaust survivors across the Mediterranean to Palestine. The mission was to be top secret because the British were determined to blockade it. This documentary is about the courageous Americans who volunteered for a true-life adventure. Their movement—the Aliyah Bet—became the basis for the Hollywood blockbuster Exodus (showing on March 29). Alan Rosenthal. 2008. 52 m. NR. Israel/US, in English.
with
Snapshots: The Ink Flag 1949
Israelis will never forget the photographs of a platoon of Palmach soldiers raising the Israeli flag over Eilat at the end of the War of Independence. Dov Gil-Har/Uri Rozen. 2008. Approx. 10 m. NR. Israel, in Hebrew with subtitles.
Q&A: Alan Rosenthal and Paul Kaye
Alan Rosenthal is a British-Israeli filmmaker. Paul Kaye, who is featured in Waves of
Freedom, sailed as an officer on the Hatikvah in 1947.
Otto Preminger’s
EXODUS
March 29: 12:15 with intermission
Otto Preminger’s adaptation of the Leon Uris novel about the founding of modern Israel. Starring Paul Newman as a Jewish freedom fighter and a cast led by Sal Mineo, David Opatoshu, Eva Marie Saint, and Jill Haworth. Composer Ernest Gold won both the Oscar and the Grammy for his unforgettable score. Otto Preminger. 1960. 220 m. NR. US.
Tickets: $9 (members), $13 (nonmembers)
THE DEAL
March 28: 9:15, April 2: 5:15
William H. Macy and Meg Ryan star in this delightful romantic comedy. When a hulking African-American action star (LL Cool J) converts to Judaism and wants a Jewish leading role, a washed up producer (Macy) sees a last-ditch opportunity to revive his own career and pitches an absurdly inappropriate script about Benjamin Disraeli—because, in Hollywood style, he happens to have the property. Meg Ryan is the striving but unhappy studio exec Macy needs to win over, and Elliot
Gould is the action star’s rabbi turned agent/advisor. Steven Schachter. 2008. 98 m. R. US/Canada.
AS SEEN THROUGH THESE EYES
March 29: 5:15*
A potent new film about the Holocaust as seen through art produced by prisoners in the camps. Determined to remember and document their experience, they used what they could find—charcoal, pencil stubs, shreds of paper—to record the horrors of their existence. The revelatory expressions captured in this film were essential to those who survived, and they offer a heartrending window into the dark night of those who didn’t. Narrated by Maya Angelou. Hilary Helstein. 2008. 70 m. NR. US.
*Q&A: Filmmaker Hilary Helstein, executive director of the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, has directed and produced over 200 segments for Steven Spielberg’s Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation.
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