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Israel on Film - National Center for Jewish Film
www.jewishfilm.org Dreamers and Builders The National Center for Jewish Film Israel on Film Prices listed are for educational use only. Home use pricing available for most titles. Public performance prohibited. Ahead Of Time: The Extraordinary Journey of Ruth Gruber Altalena USA/ Israel, 2009, 73 min, Color/ B&W English & Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Robert Richman Israel, 1994, 53 min, color/B&W English and Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Ilana Tsur Documentary DVD $90 For seven decades Foreign correspondent and photojournalist Ruth Gruber didn’t just report the news…she made it! In a trailblazing career that included authoring 19 books, Gruber reported from the Soviet arctic, escorted Holocaust refugees on a secret war-time mission, and stunned the world with dispatches from the Palestine-bound Haganah ship Exodus in 1947. Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Ruth Gruber became the youngest Ph.D. in the world before going on to become an international foreign correspondent and photojournalist at age 24. She emerged as the eyes and conscience of the world. With her love of adventure, fearlessness and powerful intellect, Ruth defied tradition in an extraordinary career that spanned more than seven decades. The film captures the drama of her life as she lent her camera lens – and her heart – to refugees of war. Ruth continues to travel all over the world re-connecting with many of the people who shared historic moments with her in Europe, in Israel, in the Arctic Tundra, in DP camps and refugee centers overseas and in the United States. As seen on Showtime and featured on The Today Show. Documentary DVD $72 On June 20, 1948, the Altalena arrived in Israel carrying 930 World War II refugees and a stockpile of ammunition amassed by the Irgun in direct violation of Ben Gurion’s new military chain-of-command. In a move that almost sparked a civil war, Ben Gurion gave the order to shell the ship, forcing Jews to fire on Jews. Yitzhak Rabin was one of the participants in this tragic event and is interviewed. • Doclisboa • Toronto Jewish Film Festival • San Francisco Jewish Film Festival • Vancouver Jewish Film Festival • Boston Jewish Film Festival “The riveting footage, emotion-wracked recollections by participants on both sides, the mind-boggling fact of Jew firing on Jew and the power play between Begin and Ben-Gurion make this extraordinary documentary a must-see!” –Jewish Forward “Evocative…well researched…has a modern subtext.” –The Jewish Week • WINNER Audience Award, Teaneck International Film Festival • WINNER Best Documentary, Miami Jewish Film Festival • WINNER Best Documentary, Denver Jewish Film Festival • WINNER Best Documentary, Berkshire Jewish Film Festival • WINNER Best Documentary, Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival “Ruth Gruber is remarkable… indefatigable…a riveting raconteur…an inspiration.” –New York Times “A case study in pioneering feminist courage.” –Time Out New York Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel on Film | Page 1 Appelfeld’s Table As If Nothing Happened Ke’Ilu Klum Lo Kara Israel, 2004, 47 min, color Hebrew w/ English subs. Director: Adi Japhet Fuchs Israel, 1999, 50 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Ayelet Bargur Documentary DVD $90 Identity, memory and the mysteries of the creative process and survival combine in this film about renowned Israeli writer Aharon Appelfeld. Director Japhet-Fuchs spent three years filming the author on his daily pilgrimages to the Jerusalem café where he writes and meets with friends and colleagues. She first became captivated by the author of over 30 books while reading his memoir The Story of a Life about his experience of being a child during the Holocaust and about having to forget who he was in order to reinvent himself as a Ukrainian boy. The film focuses on this pivotal point in his life and his later arrival to Israel as an adolescent. Appelfeld’s Table transmits something of the intangible process by which Appelfeld transforms the world around him into writing - the way he puts things together by observing people, a their gestures, and the effect they have on him. • WINNER Audience Award, Teaneck International Film Festival Fiction Drama DVD $90 Ziv Gonen, an Israeli soldier waiting for a bus, may or may not have been a victim of a terrorist bombing. Ayelet Bargur’s drama focuses on Ziv’s family as they await news of his whereabouts. As they wait, family and friends pull together and fall apart as the tension mounts and the Gonen family home becomes the site of pent up hopes and fears. Beautifully crafted and stunningly acted, this award-winning feature film illuminates every Israeli family’s nightmare. As If Nothing Happened is based on the personal experience of director Ayelet Bargur and her family in the aftermath of the Beit Lid terrorist attack of January 22, 1995. Barger’s fictional account incorporates archival footage of the Beit Lid attack during which two suicide bombers killed nineteen Israelis on a quiet Sunday morning. Also directed by Ayelet Bargur: At the End of the Day. • WINNER Audience Award, Israel Film Festival • WINNER Best Actress, Israeli Academy Awards “Beautifully transmits the humanity, optimism, and joy of living.” - Jerusalem Post “Intense acting and the non melodramatic directing make this drama one of the best films I’ve seen” - Yediot Acharonot The Arena Ha-Zirah At the End of the Day Israel, 2001, 48 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Directors: Moishe Goldberg & Yonatan Gurfinke Documentary DVD $72 Through decades of celebration, protest and turmoil, the massive Rabin Square (formerly the Kings of Israel Square), in the heart of Tel Aviv, has served as an arena for Israel’s national drama. Rabin Square became the center of a drama of its own when a group of citizens set out to change a municipal plan to turn the area into a parking lot. What makes this giant, somewhat broken and neglected spot in the center of Tel-Aviv such an important place in the lives of these people? The Arena explores tumultuous history as viewed through a place that is threatened by change. Israel, 2000, 50 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Ayelet Bargur Documentary On DVD with As if Nothing Happened Four commanders in the same Israeli Defense Force Golan Heights paratrooper unit, were killed over a 22-month period. With great sensitivity and skill, Bargur, whose brother Zvi was among those who died, documents the ongoing attempts by these families to come to terms with the deaths of their loved ones. • Maine Jewish Film Festival • Israfest • Haifa International Film Festival Page 2 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Avodah The Balcony Palestine, 1935, 50 min, B&W Music only with English subtitles Director: Helmar Lerskis Documentary DVD $50 Archive Film Preserved by The National Center For Jewish Film This landmark documentary celebrates the pioneering labors of early Jewish settlers in Palestine. With striking visual compositions and a remarkable soundtrack by the Budapest Symphony Orchestra, the film records the technological and agricultural accomplishments of the pioneers and extols the idea of a socialist Jewish state. Footage includes shots taken at the Jaffa port, in Tel Aviv, and on various kibbutzim of the time; Strasbourg-born director Lerski’s expressive style creates an almost mythic image of the Jew in Palestine, toiling and triumphing amidst the sweeping desert landscape. Israel, 2000, 54 min, color/b&w Hebrew w/ English subtitles Writer/Director: Ruth Walk; Producer: Yael Perlov Documentary DVD $54 Each morning from the balcony of his Tel Aviv apartment, 83-year old artist and filmmaker Israel Becker greets one of his grandchildren on his way to school, on a street that reverberates with the sounds of the city and its people. His apartment walls are adorned with his paintings of a world, a family, and a life consigned to memory and remembered in loving detail by a dormant talent that sprang from his subconscious. These paintings depict first and foremost his parents and siblings, murdered in the Holocaust. Also included is footage from Becker’s autobiographic feature film Long is the Road (1946), which he made at the Landsberg Displaced Persons Camp and in which he starred. See also: Long is the Road Selected Screenings - International Munich Documentary Film Festival, Jewish Museum Munich; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival; Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival; Washington DC Jewish Film Festival Aya: An Imagined Autobiography Autobiographia Dimionit Israel, 1994, 87 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director Michal Bat-Adam Fiction Feature DVD $72 Haunted by her past and struggling to do something meaningful, Aya (played by director Michel Bat-Adam) is making a movie about her life, first to please her father and then herself. Expanding on the same character previously portrayed in Bat-Adam’s A Thin Line, Aya is now a woman driven by her father’s ambition for her. As her film progresses, fragments of her dreams and fantasies alternate with reality. The result is less of a traditional narrative but one made from fragments from Aya’s life. The film champions joy and being alive in every moment while being a profound look at the emotional turmoil of a woman’s life. “God exists in the little things,” says Aya, as the pages of her script whirl in the wind around her. Also with Michal Bat-Adam: Love at Second Sight. “Aya is a highly touching personal document about relationships between mother and daughter, the hardships of young girls growing up, and the conflicts of mature women as they grapple with memories of their past.” –Amy Kronish, Lilith Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Ben Dov: Images of a Dreamer Yaacov Ben Dov, images d’un rêveur France, 1999, 55 min Color/B&W Hebrew & French with English subtitles Director: Alex Szalat Documentary DVD $72 Yakov Ben Dov came to Jerusalem from the Ukraine in 1907 with little more than a still camera to his name. He became one of the most accomplished filmmakers of his time, capturing the momentous events of his country. Ben Dov made his first documentary film General Allenby Enters Jerusalem: The Liberation of Judea which was aimed at the diaspora community to promote emigration. This eloquent portrait of an early cinema pioneer mingles astounding documents of early twentieth century Jerusalem with images of contemporary Israel. “Yakov Ben Dov, photographer and filmmaker extraordinaire, may be the true unsung hero of the founding of the state of Israel.” –San Francisco Jewish Bulletin “A poetic and melancholy homage to a passionate pioneer of cinema.” –Le Monde Israel on Film | Page 3 The Benny Zinger Show Born in Berlin Shalosh Nashim Israel, 1993, 37 min, color Hebrew with English Subtitles Director: Arnon Goldfinger Israel, 1991, 85 min, color/ B&W, German, English, Swedish & Hebrew w/ English subtitles Directors: Nomi Ben Natan & Leora Kamenetzy Ficton Short DVD $54 Benny Zinger presents slide shows at weddings, until one day, while preparing a show for a couple, he falls in love with the bride. Populated with wonderfully offbeat characters and enlivened by a good-natured sense of humor, this quirky short presents an appealing and highly entertaining slice of modern Israeli life. • WINNER Best Short Film, Jerusalem Film Festival “A wonderful fantasy... Lively, funny and smart.“ –Haifa Weekly “A very intelligent, humorous and emotionally captivating film.” –Tel Aviv Weekly Documentary DVD $72 This penetrating documentary looks at the lives of three Jewish women writers: poet Cordelia Edvardson, poet, author and journalist; Angelika Schrobsdorff, author of autobiographical novels; and Inge Deutschkron, author and former correspondent for Ma’ariv newspaper. All three grew up in pre-war Berlin, until Nazi racial laws shattered their lives. Uprooted and cut off from family and friends, all three women made their way to Israel, where they became accomplished journalists and authors. Filmed on location in Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria, and Israel, the film follows the unique paths taken by each of these women in her quest for identity and the meaning of life in the aftermath of their dreadful wartime experiences. “Wonderful... as soon as the film is over, one wants to meet with the subjects in person. ” - Fabiana Chafetz, Ha’ir Blind Man’s Bluff Golem Ba’Maagal Braids Tzamot Israel, 1993, 93 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Aner Preminger Israel, 1989, 90 min, color Hebrew w/ English subtitles Director: Yitzhak Halutzi Feature Film DVD $90 Feature Drama DVD $90 Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, Blind Man’s Bluff takes a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance herself from her Holocaust-surviving parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves out of her parents’ house in search of her own identity. She moves into a small apartment but remains caught in a lattice of demanding relationships; tension increases as Micki attempts to achieve success in the classical music world. Her eclectic new neighbors, though, introduce her to a new world of desires in which Micki finds the courage to confront her problems and emerge as an independent and mature woman. Based on a true story, Braids tells the tale of So’ad, a fourteen-yearold Jewish girl imprisoned by the Iraqi government in 1947 for her participation in the Zionist movement. The film illuminates a complex period of Jewish life in Iraq when Jews felt their security threatened as antisemitism surfaced with the growth of Zionism. Jailed for three years, So’ad joined other political prisoners in a campaign of disobedience until Iraq opened its gates in 1950 and allowed Jews to emigrate to Israel. This feature film holds strong appeal for those interested in Sephardic culture. • WINNER Israeli Feature, Jerusalem Film Festival • WINNER Golden Antigone, Montpelier Mediterranean Film Festival “... engrossing, quietly powerful...” –Los Angeles Times Page 4 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Chronicle of Love Chronika Shel Ahava Davidoff Newsreel Israel, 1998, 90 min, color Hebrew with English Subtitles Director: Tzipi Trope Palestine, 1934, 10 min, B&W Hebrew (an English translation sheet accompanies film) Produced by Davidoff Newsreel Company Fiction Drama DVD $90 Rare Footage DVD Unavailable Chronicle of Love is the first Israeli feature film to deal with the subject of battered women. Portraying the lives of women struggling with the cycle of domestic violence, director Tzipi Trope explores the tragic, horrifying consequences of physical and emotional abuse. When Nava, a social worker, shares the painful secret of her suffering with Jania, another woman victimized by her husband, the two form a healing bond. With the help of Nava’s best friend Amit, the women attempt to escape their respective situations. The story’s resolution is deeply troubling and unsparing in its emotional intensity. This newsreel segment depicts the first voyage of a Polish ocean liner to Palestine in 1934. The film contains crudely edited footage of the festive departure from the Black Sea port of Constanta, the passengers enjoying the pleasures of the open sea, the recitation of Yom Kippur prayers on deck, and an extended cantorial performance. Other images include passengers dancing the hora, singing Zionist songs, and the impressive urban vistas of Haifa and Tel-Aviv which greeted the visitors upon their arrival. “Chronicle of Love is being screened at the height of Israel’s jubilee celebrations: celebrations which conceal a deep pain, the pain of the terrible violence in which we live, violence whose source has more than once been in love - of land, of God, of lofty ideals, of power, of woman. I chose to tell the stories of women, women who are beaten and murdered in the name of love. As a woman, I wanted to examine the destructive force of love.” - Tzipi Trope, filmmaker Clementine Dear Mr. Waldman Michtavim Le America Israel, 2009, 48 min Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Tal Haim Yoffe Documentary DVD $90 A fascinating investigation that mirrors the development of Israel itself. Shaking his own family tree in this beautifully-crafted documentary, Tal Yoffe discovers a pioneering kibbutznik filmmaker, a Czarist army officer, a Nazi-trained blacksmith, several war heroes and a much missed father. Also directed by Tal Haim Yoffe: The Green Dumpster Mystery. • HONORABLE MENTION, Jerusalem Film Festival • Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema • Syracuse International Film Festival “An intensely personal and fascinating documentary, using the search for family roots to talk about what we want to pass along to our children. The filmmaker slowly reveals a family whose story is, to a great extent, the story of the State: pogroms in Russia, second immigration pioneers, the “Tower and Stockade” settlements, Orde Wingate’s night brigades, the Jewish Brigade, the Palmach, illegal immigration, expulsion to Cyprus, the bitter battles of the Yom Kippur War, and more. The film goes back and forth in time, from the pregnancy to the grandmother, to the early 20th century, to the War of Independence, and back again. It is an associative journey made up of dozens of images and pieces. The baby to be born will complete the puzzle.’” –Amy Kronish, author Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel, 2006, 86 min, color (35mm) Hebrew w/ English subtitles Writer/Director: Hanan Peled Feature Film DVD $90 In Tel Aviv in the 1960s 10-year-old Hilik knows his goal in life–to make his parents happy and compensate for the grief they both suffered in the Holocaust. The fragile equilibrium of Rivka and Moishe’s new, post-war life begins to waver when Moishe convinces himself that Yankele, his son from his first marriage, didn’t actually die in Auschwitz, but rather survived to become the “Jack Waldman” he sees pictured in a newspaper. When a deluded Moishe writes a letter to Waldman, Hilik takes matters into his own hands. A coming-of-age story written and directed by the son of survivors, Dear Mr. Waldman beautifully captures the milieu of midcentury Israel and the peculiarities of growing up amid the emotional wreckage of the Holocaust. • Nominated For 3 Israeli Academy Awards • World Premiere: Jerusalem International Film Festival • American Premiere: Palm Springs International Film Festival “Hilarious and heart-rending... transcends cliché.”– Boston Phoenix Israel on Film | Page 5 Dream of My People Halome Ami Farewell Pokaianie USA, 1934, 66 min, B&W English Director: A.J. Bloome for Palestine-American Film Co. Russia, 1992, 27 min, B&W Russian with English subtitles Director: Arkadiy Yakhnis Early Rare Travelog DVD $54 Documentary Short DVD $54 Preservation by The National Center For Jewish Film An early travelogue on Palestine, focusing on Jews living and working in the Holy Land featuring the last appearance of Cantor Joseph (Yosselle) Rosenblatt. Narrated by Zvee Scooler, American actor and legendary Yiddish radio commentator. Locations featured here include Jerusalem sites (the market, Hebrew University, the King David Hotel, the Jewish Agency); the Judean Hills, Mikve Israel Agricultural School, pioneers working in fields; Rishon le Zion, Rehovot, Nes Ziona, citrus picking and packing; Jezreel valley and settlements; Tiberias and Lak Kinneret; Bedouin dwellings; Tel Aviv and Jaffa beach and street scenes and the Maccabiah Stadium. Dreamers and Builders • WINNER Jurors’ Choice Award, Jewish Video Competition, Judah L. Magnes Museum • San Francisco JFF, Vancouver JFF, Seattle JFF “Visualizes a particular moment in Soviet and immediate post-Soviet history when Jews were participating in the most recent migration of Jews - the exodus from late and post-Communist Europe to Israel, the USA, Germany and elsewhere. The film also captured the ambivalence many Soviet Jews felt upon departure. Departure was not generally conceived of as an exile per se, since they were leaving of their own volition. For the main character in Farewell, leaving was experienced as nothing less than psychic rupture, an emotion appropraitely colored gray in the entire film.” ” - David Shneer, East European Jewish Affairs Father’s Footsteps Comme Ton Pere Israel, 1996, 50 min, b&w, English Director: Ya’akov Gross Documentary DVD $72 Spectacular rare archival film footage of Palestine in the tumultuous 1920s forms the heart of this documentary by Israeli filmmaker and scholar Ya’akov Gross. Considered lost for more than 70 years, these early films taken by Ya’akov Ben Dov, the father of Hebrew cinema, depict settlements and activities in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Rishon le Zion and Old Jaffa; visits by Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill; the funeral of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda; and early Zionists who pioneered the Third and Fourth Aliyahs. A vital and accessible look at a formative period in Israeli history. Dreamers and Builders includes material from three rare films by Ya’akov Ben Dov: Return to Zion (1920-21), The Rebirth of a Nation (1923), and Romance of Palestine (1926) – preserved in a joint project by the National Center for Jewish Film and the Israel Film Archive. “... A triumph of photographic composition and content.” - Amy Kronish, World Cinema: Israel Page 6 | Israel on Film 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. France/Israel, 2007, 95 min, color French & Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Marco Carmel Feature Film DVD $90 Father’s Footsteps stars French-Moroccan Jewish actor/comedian Gad Elmaleh as the charming Felix, whose missteps threaten his family’s future. An actor, humorist, writer and director, Elmaleh’s celebrity grows with each project. He appears regularly in French television and film and has written and performed in several hit one-man shows. In 2007 he was voted “la personnalité la plus drôle de France” (The Funniest Person in France). Elmaleh’s directorial film debut, Coco, has been one of France’s biggest box office hits of 2009. Father’s Footsteps also stars the radiant Yaël Abecassis (Shiva, Live and Become, Kadosh) and veteran French film, television and theater actor Richard Berry. • Nominated for 5 Israeli Ophir Academy Awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay & Best Actress Selected Screenings: Palm Beach JFF, Cinemania French FF, Philadelphia JFF, New York Sephardic JFF, Berlin JFF, Toronto JFF, Jacob Burns Westchester JFF, Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema, Vancouver JFF, Washington JFF, Contra Costa JFF, Greater Phoenix JFF Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Forgotten Children Die Todesmuhlen The Green Dumpster Mystery Hata’aluma Bamekhola Hayeruka Australia, 2009, 55 min, color Director: Monique Schwarz Israel, 2008, 50 min Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Tal Haim Yoffe Documentary DVD $90 Documentary DVD $90 After the head of Indigenous Studies at Melbourne University saw Hebrew University’s innovative program of accelerated learning for disadvantaged students applied first hand to Bedouin children in Israel, she established an intervention program for at-risk Aboriginal students in remote regions of Australia, many of whom were unable to speak or write English. Israeli teachers, traveling the outback in pairs via small airplanes, were sent to remote schools to train indigenous teachers. Forgotten Children tells the story of these remarkable teachers and their even more remarkable students. “In my house when I was growing up, these were the most important things. I feel that the Forgotten Children expresses my heartfelt concerns, and shows that there can be light at the end of the tunnel.” - Monique Schwarz, Director Four Friends Pegisha Hozeret • WINNER Yad Vashem Award Artistic Achievement Holocaust-Related Film, Jerusalem International Film Festival “One of the best Israeli films of recent times. In an ostensibly light tone, which balances the serious subjects in the film - history and memory, Holocaust and bereavement...A very good thriller...This is a serious, complex and important work.” Hatikvah: The Hope Israel, 2000, 60 min, color, Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Esther Dar Producers: Noemi Ben & Natan Schory Germany, 1936, 48 min, B&W Silent with German and English intertitles Produced by the German Zionist Union Documentary DVD $72 Documentary DVD $72 Four women who were roommates at an Anglican boarding school in Jerusalem in 1939 meet 50 years later for a reunion: Selma Dejani, daughter of an Old Palestinian Moslem family; Wadad Shihade, a Palestinian Christian originally from Jaffa; Olga Belkind, daughter of a prominent Zionist family; and Sharona Aharon from cosmopolitan Tel-Aviv. For Olga and Sharona, the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 was the fulfillment of a dream, but for Selma and Wadad it spelled the beginning of a lifelong tragedy. Their emotional reunion encapsulates the drama and pain rocking the region. Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Traveling through Tel Aviv, Tal Haim Yoffe finds a discarded box of old photographs in a green dumpster. This docu-detective film, slowly unwinds a family history, beginning in Lodz, Poland, and traveling through the Siberian Gulag, a Samarkand sugar plant, a Ha’apala ship and the battlefields of the Sinai Peninsula. This tightly-paced tour de force vividly evokes the now-extinguished lives of an anonymous—but typical—Israeli family. Also directed by Tal Haim Yoffe: Clementine. Preservation by The National Center For Jewish Film Created in 1936 in an effort to inspire German Jews under Nazi rule to make Aliyah, Hatikvah: The Hope is at once a documentary on the earliest period of Zionist history and an artifact from it. The film was made three years after the Nazis rise to power, at the narrow juncture in history when flight from Germany was both imperative and still possible. The unique footage focuses on some major personalities in the Zionist movement, the constructive work carried out in Palestine by the first waves of immigration, and the religious life of Jews from a diverse spectrum of backgrounds. Israel on Film | Page 7 Holy For Me I Am Joseph, Your Brother Israel, 1995, 34 min, color Hebrew w/ English subtitles Director: Assaf Bernstein Israel, 2001, 59 min, color English Directors: Amy Kronish & Eli Tal-El Fiction Short DVD $36 Documentary DVD $36 Study Guide $10 This spoof on tours, guides, and the “holy” sites of Israel concerns thirty year old Jonah Sidas, who had a typical Jewish-Israeli upbringing; he was born and raised in Jaffa, graduated from high school and served as a paratrooper in the army. One day, Jonah donned the cross and black gown of the priesthood; now he guides pilgrims around Tel Aviv, which he believes is a holy city for the Christian faith. Join Jonah and his unwitting group of tourists on an insane two-day tour of Tel Aviv. • WINNER Best Short Film, Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival The Holy Land Produced for the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel in association with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Chronicling the visit of Pope John Paul II to Israel in 2000, I am Joseph reflects on the often difficult and turbulent relationship that has existed for centuries between Jews and Christians, Judaism and Catholicism, and more recently, between Israel and the Vatican. The film includes interviews with dignitaries, religious leaders, and educators, both Jewish and Catholic, and never seen before footage from the Vatican Archives. • WINNER Silver Remi Award, Worldfest International Film Festival • WINNER Bronze Plaque, Chris Awards Israel Rocks! A Journey Through Music of Visions and Divisions USA, 1917, 5 min, B&W, Silent Produced by Conquest Pictures Rare Footage DVD Not Available This historic footage of Palestine focuses on the holy Christian and Jewish sites of Jerusalem. Sites documented here include the Garden of Gethsemane, Mount of Olives, the Wailing Wall, the Way of the Calvary, and the Damascus Gate. Other footage depicts beggars, lepers and Arab men and women at work in Bethlehem. Israel, 2000, 55 min, color Hebrew with English Subtitles Directors: Izzy Abrahami & Erga Netz Documentary DVD $72 Oan you grasp Israel by its rock and pop bands? Can you see through them the complexities, the tribulation and the dreams of this young country? Can you sense through song and music the divisions among its people, their craving for peace, their pain and their disillusionment of war? Each one of the revealing songs in Israel Rocks depicts the major problems facing the people of Israel, from politics to poverty, their dreams and their attempts to create a better future. The documentary profiles over 20 singers, bands and choirs in this TV documentary, playing and singing in various styles, from pop and rock to blues, folk and rap. • WINNER Prix Arman, Urti Grand Prix For Documentaries • WINNER Gold Medal, Monte Carlo Television Festival • Golden Prague Nomination, International Television Festival • WINNER Gemini Award, Best Documentary Academy Of Canadian Cinema & Television History Page 8 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org The Land of Promise The Liquid of Life Nozel Ha-Hayim Palestine, 1935, 57 min, B&W English and Hebrew Director: Juda Leman 2008, Israel, 50 min, color, Hebrew with English subtitles Directed by Pini Schatz DVD $54 Documentary DVD $90 One of Palestine’s earliest sound films and part of a campaign to encourage settlement and investment in “the Jewish homeland,” this striking documentary emphasizes secular accomplishments and portrays Zionist settlers with considerable cinematographic and editorial skill. Preserved by and made available in cooperation with the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House. Pini Schatz’s funny and colorful film proves there’s no reason to be afraid of the liquid that flows inside our veins: An artist paints with his own blood, a psychologist explains our fears of blood, an academic describes the fertilization with blood of the lands in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period, one make up artist and one special-effects wizard compete over making fake blood, the director of Israel’s blood bank service discusses the ingredients of blood, and a hypnotist proves that under hypnosis, blood won’t flow. Director Schatz contributes macabre recreations of family history and childhood memories. And yes there is also a recipe for Bloody Mary… and a hamster as well! • WINNER Best International Documentary, NY Independent Film & Video Festival “A fantastic idea for a film, maybe the best idea I’ve ever heard”- Guy Maddin Last Journey Into Silence Living For Tomorrow: Untold Stories by the Pioneering Women of Israel Israel, 2001, 52 min, color Hebrew w/ English subtitles Director/Producer: Shosh Shlam Documentary DVD $72 USA, 2000, 53 min, color Hebrew and English with English subtitles Director: Lilach Dekel Documentary DVD $72 Filmed at the Shaar Menashe Hospital in Israel, this heartbreaking film examines the plight of elderly Holocaust survivors whose war-time experiences have left them unable to find inner peace. Abandoned by their families, Iosefina, Hana and Fira - the three patients featured - have spent the last few decades in this hospital, and the film combines an account of their daily routines and lives with the painful journey faced by their respective daughters as they visit their mothers and try to bring them back to family life. Growing up in Israel, Lilach Dekel had heard the stories of its creation many times; stories of hardship made bearable by the unwavering belief in a new society founded on the principles of Socialism and Zionism. Her grandmother, with other young idealists from Eastern Europe, immigrated to Palestine in the 1920s, resolved to build the kibbutz movement—a utopia of communal ownership of property, decision making, and education. Now in their 80s and 90s, these pioneer women offer candid evaluations of the their youthful challenges and sacrifices. • WINNER Columbine Award for Best Documentary, Moondance IFF, Los Angeles • Golden Sheaf Award Nomination, Yorkton Short Film & Video Festival • Exceptional Achievement Commendation, Haifa IFF “To succeed, these young girls had to defy stereotypes of work, mothering, devotion to parents and sexual intimacy. Their youthful struggles evoke tears, laughter and delightful stories, made more poignant by the striking music, stills, and archival film that Dekel uses in her beautiful study.” - Shulamit Reinharz, HadassahBrandeis Institute Selected Screenings: Boston Jewish Film Festival, Singapore International Film Festival, Cracow International Film Festival, London Jewish Film Festival “A work of tragic art.” - Phil Hall, Film Threat Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel on Film | Page 9 Love at Second Sight Ahava Mimabat Sheni My 100 Children Me’ah Yeladim Sheli Israel, 1998, 90 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Michal Bat-Adam Israel, 2003, 68 min, English, Hebrew & Polish with English subtitles Directors: Amalia Margolin & Oshra Schwartz Feature Film DVD $90 Documentary New HD Transfer DVD $90 Renowned Israeli filmmaker and actress Michal Bat-Adam produced, wrote, and directed this intriguing tale of romantic obsession in presentday Tel Aviv. The beautiful Michal Zuaratz stars as a young female photographer infatuated with a stranger whose image she accidentally captures on film. Also directed by Michal Bat-Adam: Aya: An Imagined Biography. When Lena Kuchlar discovered dozens of orphaned Jewish children in Krakow after WWII, she employed the progressive psychiatric methods of Janusz Korczak and slowly brought these damaged kids back to life. Antisemitic attacks in 1949 forced her to smuggle the children out of Poland to France and later to Israel. Based on Küchlar’s best-selling autobiography, the film includes moving interviews with her “children.” “The film sizzles with the heat of impetuosity.” –Boston Globe • WINNER Best Documentary, Israeli Film Academy • WINNER Best Documentary - Jewish Experience, Jerusalem IFF “A meditation on finding –and keeping– love.” –Jewish Advocate Selected Screenings: Zagreb Jewish Film Festival, Jewishfilm.2010 NCJF Annual Film Festival, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Rochester Film Festival, Bergen County Jewish Film Festival, Rutgers Jewish Film Festival, Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Pacific Jewish Film Festival, Jerusalem International Film Festival “Definitive version of the inspiring story of Lena Kuchlar … absorbing…no shortage of poignant and dramatic moments.” – Variety Love Inventory Reshimat Ahava My Brother’s Wedding Israel, 2000, 90 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: David Fisher Documentary DVD $72 USA, 2003, 36 min, color Director: Daniel Akiba Documentary Short DVD $72 Filmmaker David Fisher and his siblings were grappling with the concerns of families everywhere: divorce, child-raising, job pressures, emotional problems. After the loss of his parents, Fisher feared that his tightly knit family was growing apart. As they sifted through the family papers, a long-buried secret rises to the surface. Bittersweet, honest and touchingly funny, Love Inventory chronicles Fisher’s attempt to solve a personal mystery—uniting his troubled family in the process. Three months after Dan Akiba’s brother Jonah traveled to Israel from Boston, Jonah called his mother and declared, “The Torah is the word of God.” After his brother’s radical conversion, Akiba found it increasingly difficult to remember the brother he once knew. Akiba’s film documents his family’s trip to Israel to attend Jonah’s wedding and explores how his brother’s embrace of the foreign world of Orthodox Judaism has affected them all. • WINNER Best Documentary Israeli Academy Award • WINNER Best Documentary Jerusalem Film Festival • WINNER Merit Award Taiwan Int’l Documentary Festival • WINNER Best Documentary DocuNaga Selected Screenings: Israel’s Living Canvas/ GersherCity Boston; Contra Costa International Jewish Film Festival; San Diego Jewish Film Festival; San Jose Jewish Film Festival; Atlanta Jewish Film Festival; Boston Jewish Film Festival; Vancouver Jewish Film Festival; Toronto Jewish Film Festival ”David Fisher’s Love Inventory is a riveting documentary, both thematically and technically, that renders the lines between fictional and non-fictional cinema almost irrelevant... a gem that does the Israeli cinema proud.” -Variety ”A remarkable piece of intimate documentary making.” -The Jerusalem Post Page 10 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Next Year in... Argentina El Año que Viene en... Argentina A People Chosen: Who is a Jew? Israel, 2005, 62 min, color Spanish with English subtitles Director: Jorge Gurvich and Shlomo Slutzky Israel, 1976, 57 min, color Director: Herb Krosney Documentary DVD $72 Documentary DVD $72 Argentinean-born Israelis filmmaker Jorge Gurvich and journalist Shlomo Slutzky met in Buenos Aires in the 1970’s before both men immigrated to Israel. Thirty years later, they take up the question of Jewish-Argentine history, identity and especially attitudes towards Israel. Over a period of six years, Gurvich and Slutzky interviewed a host of Argentinean Jews, examining their decisions to remain in Argentina or emigrate to Israel. This film is an excellent vehicle to explore issues of Jewish identity. Orthodox Jews, Jewish atheists, Russian immigrants, and kibbutzniks discuss their views on the controversial debate over ‘who is a Jew.’ Interviewees include Abba Eban, Rabbi Goren, Yigal Alon, and David Ben-Gurion. The Argentinean Jews struggle with economic and emotional issues which are often painful. The film reveals the difficulties common to many immigrants, especially Jews in the diaspora who struggle to find a safe and sustaining place for themselves and their families. “Next Year in... Argentina helps to define the different perceptions of Jewish identity and the place of the Jewish state in modern Jewish consciousness. – The Jewish Channel On My Way to Father’s Land Pillar of Salt Natziv Hamelech Israel, 1995, 75 min, color/b&w Hebrew w/ English subtitles Director: Aner Preminger Documentary DVD $72 A moving documentary account of a son’s struggle to understand his father’s past. The film takes us on two journeys: the first is to Vienna, where director Preminger’s father returns to his childhood home to share stories of his youth during the Nazi occupation. On the second journey, we follow Preminger’s father as a young immigrant in Palestine where he became a member of the first “Knesset,” joined the Palestine Communist Party, and later resigned to establish the Hebrew Communist Party. Israel, 1980, 58 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Haim Shiran Fiction Drama DVD $72 Based on the autobiographical novel by sociologist Albert Memmi, this fiction feature film captures the cultural richness and social complexity of a Jewish boy’s life in Tunisia, North Africa. Alexander, age 13, is an expressive and intelligent boy who sensitively responds to conflicting pressures from surrounding French and Arab societies. A rare opportunity to see the unique customs of Sephardic Jewish life in Tunisia, including Sabbath dinner and Alexander’s bar mitzvah. Through interviews and archival material, the younger Preminger discovers his father’s role in the politics and ideology debated in those days. The film ends as the father reviews his life but still “continues to build, to dream and plan growth and renewal.” Also directed by Aner Preminger: Blind Man’s Bluff Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel on Film | Page 11 Purple Lawns Deshaim S’Gulim Rain 1949 Israel, 1998, 56 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Dina Zvi-Riklis Israel, 1998, 52 min, color Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles Director: Ilan Yagoda Feature Film DVD $72 Documentary DVD $72 In this fiction feature film, Yael and Shlomit, two secular free-spirited women, bring in a third roommate to their Tel-Aviv apartment: Malka, an enigmatic ultra-orthodox woman. Malka’s interest in living with two secular women touches Yael’s heart but arouses Shlomit’s suspicions. The growing friendship between Yael and Malka makes Shlomit jealous and she begins to follow Malka. After many twists and turns, Malka’s secret is revealed. The orthodox woman’s treatment by her own community and her subsequent miserable fate moves both women who determine to help her. The film tells the story of an intimate bond between women from different worlds. Selected Screenings: Wonder of Women Festival, Tucson Jewish Film Festival, Vancouver Jewish Film Festival, Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival The settlers of Kibbutz Megido and the Arab villagers of Lajun are connected to the same hill. Director Ilan Yagoda arrived at Megido in 1977 as a part of his military service. Only then did he discover that his mother had been a part of the original group of refugees who had established Kibbutz Megido. For four years Yagoda lived on the Kibbutz. Seventeen years later he returns to the Kibbutz and meets the refugees of the past, Jews and Arabs tied to the same plot of land. • WINNER Bronze Award, Worldfest-Flagstaff Selected Screenings: Worldfest-Flagstaff, Sao Paulo Jewish Film Festival, Haifa International Film Festival, Worldfest Houston International Film, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Museum of Jewish Heritage - New York, NY, Hamptons International Film Festival, Columbus International Film and Video Festival ”A catharsis of sorts, symbolized by the torrential rains of 1949 which could never quite wash away the past.” -The Jerusalem Post Rabin: Shivah in November Rites of Passage: The Spiritual Journey of Alice Shalvi Israel, 2010/1995, 62 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Producer: Noemi Ben Natan Schory, Belfilms Documentary DVD $90 The assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin on November 4, 1995 as he left a peace rally in support of the Oslo Accords plunged the country into mourning. That the gunman was a 25-year old Israeli opposed to the peace accords whose aggression was encouraged by the rhetoric of homegrown Israeli groups further complicated the event’s fallout. Rabin: Shivah in November documents the assassination’s aftermath as it occurred, recording the chaos, the spontaneous acts of public mourning and the various political and personal responses of Israel’s leaders and citizens. Israel, 1998, 51 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Paula WeimanKelman Documentary DVD $72 Leading Israeli scholar, feminist, and peace activist Alice Shalvi discusses her public and private lives, from her childhood in Essen to present-day Israel. Shalvi reflects on her full and active life as a daughter, wife, mother of six, university professor, principal of an experimental girls’ religious school, founding chair of the Israel Women’s Network, and Rector of Jerusalem’s Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. Weiman-Kelman’s tribute uses home movies, archival films, and Shalvi’s splendidly-told tales. “A wise and witty portrait of a genuine heroine by a gifted new filmmaker. Alice Shalvi’s journey is an inspiration to women and men - everywhere.” -Jerusalem Report “Alice Shalvi’s resume is impressive, but seeing and feeling her journey on this film is overwhelming.” - Dianna Friedgut Page 12 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Rutenberg Ish HaHashmal Second Watch Mishmeret Shniya Israel, 2002, 90 min, color English and Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Eli Cohen Israel, 1995, 14 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Udi Ben-Arie Documentary DVD $72 Fiction Short DVD $36 Eli Cohen’s biopic of Pinchas Rutenberg, a complex, larger-than-life visionary who, amongst other things, brought electricity to Jewish Palestine in the 1930s with the establishment of a hydroelectric power station in Naharayim. Set in 1931, flashbacks show how Rutenberg lobbied Winston Churchill and other British MPs to bankroll his electricity project and how he was implicated in a plot to overthrow the Russian czarist government. A film festival favorite. Also directed by Eli Cohen: The Wordmaker. Berkowitz, an Israeli Reserve soldier, is on watch at a remote post along the Israeli-Jordanian border. Just a few yards away across the border, he finds an equally bored Jordanian soldier. The interaction between the two guards makes for an irresistible comic exercise and speaks volumes about the simple human truths underlying the complexities of life in the Middle East. • WINNER Best Art Direction - Israeli Film Academy Selected Screenings: Israel’s Living Canvas/ GersherCity Boston; Virginia Jewish Film Festival; Reno Jewish Film Festival: Miami Jewish Film Festival “Menashe Noy’s Rutenberg is a brilliant, formal, self absorbed man who had the ability to compel the most recalcitrant worker to follow his lead.” - Los Angeles Times Schund The Secret: Poland’s New Jews Hasod Israel, 2010, 56, min, color Hebrew, Yiddish with English subtitles Director: Yael Leibovitz Zand Mockumentary DVD $90 In this clever “mockumentary”, Yael Leibovitz Zand searches for a renowned Yiddish actor who went missing 25 years ago, leaving behind debts, rumors and a mysterious inscription—”schund”—on his door. While searching for him, we meet the colorful (real) characters who made up Israel’s vibrant Yiddish scene during the country’s first decades, a period when Yiddish theater thrived even under pressure from the Israeli establishment. • North American Premiere: Toronto Jewish Film Festival • World Premiere: DocAviv Tel Aviv Documentary Festival “A fascinating film to watch. By presenting various interviews with a host of individuals – most of which were true Yiddish theater actors during the heyday of this genre – the film is able to paint a vivid, vibrant and enlightening picture of those days. Katsaf’s melodramatic story is sweepings, and no less are the ups and downs that characterized the local Yiddish theater.” -Haaretz Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org • WINNER - Best Short Film - Dresden International Filmfest • Best Foreign Film Nominee - Student Academy Awards Israel/Poland, 2001, 52 min, color English, Hebrew, Polish, with English subtitles Director: Ronit Kerstner Producer: Noemi Schory Documentary DVD $90 Through accidental discovery or deathbed confessions, many Catholic Polish citizens have made an unsettling discovery: they were born Jewish. These “new Jews” must decide what this new truth means to them, as Poles and as Jews. With their Jewishness repressed and repudiated for decades by their parents, these children grew into to adulthood under Communist rule knowing nothing of their heritage. Often, this unsettling news came as a result of a family crisis or life-cycle event, heightening the familial and personal drama experienced by these new Jews who find even their most intimate relationships tested. Many became estranged from their disapproving families after making the decision to practice Jewish customs and rituals. These personal stories unfold in the context of Polish-Jewish history and as a direct legacy of the Holocaust. • WINNER Best Documentary, Bordeaux International Festival of Women in Cinema “ The film’s strength lies in its depiction of people searching for the answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’” - Gazeta Wyborcza (Polish daily newspaper) Israel on Film | Page 13 The Shower Ha-Miklachat So We Said Goodbye Nifradnu Kach Israel, 1997, 35 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Jorge Gurvich Israel, 1991, 26 minutes Color/b&w Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles Director: Jorge Gurvich Fiction Short DVD $54 Hospitalized in a ward, a father (Yossi Yadin) pleads with his son to be allowed to return home at least once for a shower. The elderly man’s anxiety in the face of loneliness and death fades and the unresolved conflicts of his family disappear for a few moments of grace as his son bathes him in the shower. Also Directed by Jorge Gurvich: Next Year in... Argentina; So We Said Goodbye. • WINNER Best Short Film - Jerusalem Film Festival • WINNER Best Film, Best Director - Chile International Short Film Festival • WINNER Best Short Film - Uruguay International Film Festival • SPECIAL MENTION - Krakow International Short Film Festival Short Film DVD $54 While saying goodbye to his son and grandchildren who are leaving Israel, Yackov remembers when, as a child, he also said goodbye to his family in Poland in 1937, not realizing that he would never see them again. • WINNER Best Short Film, Jerusalem International Film Festival ”This beautiful short film by the outstanding Israeli photographer Jorge Gurvich moved me to tears. Do not miss it!” Nacham Ingbar, Yediot Aharonot “This beautiful short film by the outstanding Israeli photographer Jorge Gurvich moved me to tears. Do not miss it!” –Yediot Aharonot Simply Human Song of Hannah Israel, 2000, 30 min, color Dutch, English, & Hebrew w/ English Subtitles Directors: Izzy Abrahami & Erga Netz Documentary DVD $72 Simply Human tells the story of Mrs. Hans Snoek, a 90 year old Dutch dancer who has dedicated her life to helping people. Famous in the Netherlands for being the creator of the Scapino Ballet (an adult group dancing for children), the Krakeling theater (a children’s theater) and many more artistic and humanistic activities, including the creation - just three years before - of the Toverbal (“Magic Ball”: a foundation dedicated to help refugee children in the Netherlands to overcome their traumatic experiences through the experience of Arts), for all these contributions she’s received top honors from the Dutch Queen and other Dutch institutions. Famous as she was, there’s one part of Hans Snoek’s life that was little known and that sheds light on her unique character. During World War II she hid Jewish people in her home in Amsterdam, and for risking her life in this way she’s received the Righteous Among the Nations Award from Yad Vashem. Page 14 | Israel on Film USA/Hungary, 2005, 45 min, color/b&w English, Hungarian & Hebrew w/ English subtitles Director: Nicole Opper Documentary DVD $72 A visionary poet who felt that she had been chosen for a special mission, Hannah Senesh left the Palestine kibbutz she had helped to build and parachuted into her native Hungary to rescue victims of the Holocaust at the tail end of the war. She was caught, imprisoned, tortured, and killed at age 23. A visually poetic film and love letter to it’s subject, Song of Hannah combines intimate interviews with a fellow prison inmate, her mission commander, and family members, and weaves them with Hannah’s poems and writings as well as with the voices of students at a school founded in her name. These students keep her spirit alive today, and Song of Hannah embraces them as storytellers, challenging young people to contribute to the collective memory of their history as the students trace Hannah’s story from Hungary to Israel and back, from their hometown of Brooklyn, New York. “Song of Hannah is an amazing opportunity to bring together audiences of youth and elders to forge an important exchange about courage, art and identity.” - Judith Helfand, award-winning filmmaker Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Stan Getz: A Musical Odyssey Tel Aviv-Jaffa USA, 1978, 60 min, color Director: Herbert Dorfman Israel, 2009, 125 min, Hebrew with English subtitles Directors: Anat Zeltser, Modi Bar-On, Gabriel Bibliowicz Documentary DVD $72 Documentary 2 DVD Set $180 ”You know, when I’m playing, I think of myself in front of the Wailing Wall with a saxophone in my hands, and I’m davening, I’m really telling it to the Wall.” –Stan Getz. Join jazz saxophone virtuoso Stan Getz on his 1977 three-week tour of Israel. Getz adapting his unique style to the various ethnic sounds of Israel when he jams with local musicians, including a Kurdish drummer, an Arab quartet, a Hassidic wedding band, a Yemenite dance troupe, and the Piamenta Brothers Band, an Israeli group influenced by Eastern European music, traditional Jewish chants, rock and roll, Jazz, and Arabic music. Produced in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Tel Aviv, this two part documentary explores the rich and complex history of Tel Aviv from its beginnings as an unpretentious neighborhood on the outskirts of Ottoman Jaffa to its the present status as one of the world’s vibrant and modern cities. The film also documents the fate of Jaffa, the city that gave birth to Tel Aviv and was subsequently engulfed by it. Israeli TV celebrity Modi Bar-On hosts this fast-paced, lively film, which intercuts a treasure trove of archival material with those of contemporary Tel Aviv. Tel AvivJaffa portrays the plethora of national conflicts, political tensions and cultural contradictions that makes the city unique. The Struma Too Close to Home Shnei Meter M’Habayit Canada, 2001, 90 min, color, English Director: Simcha Jacobovici Israel, 1995, 50 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Ori Inbar Documentary DVD $90 Documentary Short DVD $54 In 1941 nearly 800 Romanian Jews board a 46 meter boat called the Struma, a refugee ship bound for Palestine. The vessel is horribly overcrowded, the people are packed together like sardines, and then the engine fails. Limping along the Struma manages to reach Istanbul Harbor and then it waits while Turkey trying to stay “neutral” in the war deliberates the passengers’ fate. In 2000 using information from the sole survivor the grandson of two Struma passengers leads an international team of elite divers to find the watery grave of his grandparents. Immediately a Turkish dive club claims to have found the wreck and with Turkish government support, attempts to obstruct the search for the Struma. Suddenly, contemporary politics mirror events of the early 1940’s and the divers find themselves entangled in a 60-year-old cover-up. “Simcha Jacobovici’s engrossing documentary not only functions as a memorial to this little-remembered tragedy, but also as a latter-day adventure yarn...A documentary of unusual narrative excitement” – Variety The future of the Golan remains a crucial issue for Israel’s future. This documentary about the people who live in and protect the Golan provides important insight into the political and social issues surrounding the territory. In 1994, Israeli army officer and filmmaker Ori Inbar recorded his annual reserve service in the Israeli-Syrian border patrol on the Golan Heights. The resulting documentary follows five of the men of Inbar’s unit during the 32 days of their yearly tour of duty, an experience they have been sharing for nearly 20 years. The film then moves on to reveal the soldiers’ domestic lives; all five of the men actually live in the Golan, and were among the first to settle in the area after it changed from Syrian to Israeli hands. “ (A) monument to the affirmative power of historical memory..” – Toronto Star Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel on Film | Page 15 Transnistria: The Hell Underdogs: A War Movie Beit Shean: Seret Milhamah Israel, 1996, 40 min, color/B&W Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Zolton Terner Israel, 1996, 86 min, color Hebrew with English subtitles Directors: Doron Tsabori & Rino Zror Documentary Short DVD $54 Documentary DVD $72 From 1941-1944, 300,000 Jews were killed at the hands of Romanian officials in Transnistria, an area of southern Ukraine bordering Rumania. Dubbed the “land of exile” by the Romanian Jews herded there, hundreds of ghettos and concentration camps dotted the landscape. Unlike the “killing industry” of Auschwitz, Romanian death camps used the “old methods” of “long drawn-out deaths”: shooting, starvation, freezing, and illness. Of those who survived, only the children are left. Now adults living in Israel, these orphans of Transnistria give testimony with their memories, paintings, letters, and photographs. Scholars, including Dalia Ofer, Leon Wallovitz, and Shmuel Ben-Tzion, discuss the history of Transnistria and probe the reasons why this area has become known as the “Forgotten Cemetery.” Writer Aharon Appelfeld is one of several survivors of Transnistria featured in this emotional and hard-hitting Israel documentary, which details an almost-forgotten part of the Holocaust and presents the case of frustrated survivors whose experience and suffering has gone mostly unrecognized in Israel. A charming documentary about the soccer mania that hits Beit She’an as the local team prepares for their last crucial game of the season. Beit She’an, a small working-class Israeli town near the Jordanian border, must defeat the rich, national championship team from Haifa in order to remain in the league. More than battles on the soccer field, the film is about the conflicts between rich and poor, small town and big city, minorities and the ruling class. The Trial of Adolf Eichmann The Vision of Chaim Weizmann France, 2011, 90 min English narration, Hebrew, German & French w/ English subtitles Director: Michaël Prazan • WINNER Best Documentary, Israeli Academy Awards Selected Screenings: Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Gainesville Jewish Film Festival USA, 1963, 27 min, B&W Director: Lazar Dunner Documentary Short DVD $36 Documentary DVD $90 Blu-ray $125 The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann held in an Israeli courtroom and broadcast around the globe, was a benchmark event in the historiography of the Holocaust, especially in Israel where the trial proved a watershed experience for survivors and citizens of the new Jewish state. Employing new video and broadcast technologies, the trial was also a milestone in media and journalism coverage. From the producers of Being Jewish in France and Einsatzgruppen, this absorbing, comprehensive new documentary features detailed accounts of Eichmann’s capture, the drama in the courtroom and behind the scenes, and reactions to the trial from around the world. A biography of Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, incorporating film footage, sketches, and still photographs. The film begins with Dr. Weizmann’s inauguration as President and then surveys his life from childhood in Russia, to early adulthood in Germany and England, and his eventual arrival in Palestine. The documentary then discusses the rise of Hitler in Germany, the “White Paper,” the effect of World War II on European Jews and Palestine, and culminates with the proclamation of the State of Israel with footage of Truman recognizing Israel and presenting Weizmann with a Torah as a gift. • USA Premiere: New York Jewish Film Festival ”Marvelous footage... the film gives audiences a chance to be at the trial... Viewers will see Eichmann’s facial tick, discussed at length in coverage of the trial. They will see portions of witness testimonies. I heard stories I had [not] yet heard about the Holocaust... A fascinating assemblage of interviews, footage, and analysis. It is highly recommended.” –Jewish Daily Forward Page 16 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org What I Saw in Hebron Ma Sheraiti B’Hebron The Wordmaker Ish She’Ahav B’Ivrit Israel, 1999, 73 min, color Hebrew & Arabic w/ English subtitles Directors: Noit Geva & Dan Geva Israel, 1991, 90 min, color Hebrew, English, French & Russian with English subtitles Director: Eli Cohen Documentary DVD $90 Drama DVD $90 Seventy years after the 1929 Hebron massacre, directors Noit and Dan Geva bring us the personal testimony of 12 people who survived the atrocity. Noit Geva’s grandmother, 16 years old at the time of the massacre, recorded a journal entry “What I Saw in Hebron.” She never spoke of her experience. This gripping documentary allows a rare glimpse into a little-known moment in Israel’s history. • WINNER Bronze Award, Worldfest-Flagstaff Selected Screenings: Sao Paulo Jewish Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, New York Jewish Film Festival, DocAviv International Film Festival, International Human Rights Film Festival, Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin, San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Sao Paulo Jewish Film Festival, Taiwan International Documentary Film Festival, United Nations Association Film Festival, Festival de Cinema de Girona, Washington Jewish Film Festival, Festival of Jewish Cinema Australia Women Unchained At the beginning of the twentieth century, a language war raged in Palestine. The contenders: Yiddish, Russian, French, German, English, and Hebrew, a language barely spoken for 2000 years. At stake: the national language of the Jewish homeland-in-the-making. This fiction feature film from veteran director Eli Cohen tells the dramatic life story of Eliezer BenYehuda who championed the cause of modern Hebrew. Also directed by Eli Cohen: Rutenberg • Represented the Israel Broadcasting Authority in Prix-Italia Zoll Zeyn USA, 2011, 60 min, color English & Hebrew with English subtitles Director: Beverly Siegel Documentary DVD $90 Israel/ Germany, 1989, 135 min, color Yiddish with English subtitles Directors: Henryk M. Broder & Frans van der Meulen Documentary 2 DVD Set $72 An important new film documenting the “get-o-nomics” extortion schemes levied against “agunot” -- women whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish divorce. Narrated by actress Mayim Bialik (Blossom, The Big Bang Theory) and shot in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles and Israel, Women Unchained includes Susan Weiss, founder of the Center for Women’s Justice in Israel; Sharon Shenhav, director of the International Jewish Women’s Rights Watch; Rabbi Gedalia Dov Schwartz, Chicago Rabbinical Council and the Beth Din of America; and Brooklyn District Attorney Charles Hynes who helps Jewish victims of domestic violence. The state of Yiddish culture in Israel in the late 1980s is examined, from socialist Bundists in Tel Aviv to the Orthodox in Jerusalem to all of the poets, singers, revolutionaries, journalists, and actors in between for whom Yiddish is a living language in the midst of Hebrew. The Yiddish speakers interviewed discuss their love of Yiddish language and literature and the attitude in Israel toward Yiddish. They also share stories and vignettes highlighting the vitality and richness of Yiddishkeyt. Selected Screenings: Jerusalem Cinematheque Israel (Special Event), Pittsburgh JFF, Rockland County JFF, Palm Beach JFF, Berkshire JFF, Washington JFF, Spertus (Chicago), Toronto JFF, Hungary JFF (Budapest), Brussels JFF, Savannah JFF ”A daring yet dignified film” - The Jewish Press ”Thought provoking, unexpected yet uncomfortably familiar” - Hadassah Magazine Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org Israel on Film | Page 17 All titles available exclusively through NCJF. Contact NCJF to arrange public exhibition screenings of any kind. Exhibition formats vary by title and include: 35mm, 16mm, Beta, DCP, DVD and Blu-ray. Educational Use DVD purchase does not include public performance rights. Special discount pricing available for orders of multiple titles, VHS upgrades and special collections. Digital site licensing also available with select titles. Blu-ray verisons available with some newer titles. For complete ordering information, full film descriptions or to find out about public performance rentals visit www.jewishfilm.org. The National Center for Jewish Film Since 1976, The National Center for Jewish Film has rescued, restored, distributed and exhibited films that document the diversity and vibrancy of Jewish life. NCJF owns the largest collection of Jewish content film outside of Israel and is a major distributor of new films, representing 100 contemporary independent filmmakers from around the world. NCJF is an independent non-profit 501(c)3 arts organization. Donate now and save endangered films. The National Center for Jewish Film Lown 102, MS 053 Brandeis University Waltham, MA 02454 [email protected] Page 18 | Israel on Film Call 781-736-8600 or visit www.jewishfilm.org
