Jewish Film Festival taps artists from eight nations
By Paul Haist
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The 15th annual Portland Jewish Film Festival runs Jan. 18-28 and includes 17 films and five shorts from eight nations including Argentina, France, Hungary, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.
A special attraction this year will be the guest appearance of Janis Plotkin at the festival's Jan. 18 opening night. Plotkin, a scholar of Jewish cinema who programmed and produced the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (the nation's first Jewish film festival)( from 1982 through 2002, will be in Portland that day from the Bay Area as the featured speaker in the Writers and Scholar's Lecture series, like the film festival, a project of Portland's Institute for Judaic Studies.
The Jan. 18 opener at 7 p.m. is "Family Law" by Argentine director Daniel Burman. It's a dramatic comedy about a father and son's struggle to get to know one another.
Plotkin said of Burman, "He's a very sensitive, Buenos Aires-based filmmaker who has told Jewish stories that have had international appeal."
The remaining 16 films include:
"Trembling on the Road" (Jan. 20-9 p.m.), U.S. Sandi Simcha Dubowski documents the dialogues, protests, reaction and more that greeted the controversial 2001 film "Trembling Before G-d," about gay and lesbian Hassidic Jews.
"Lonely Man of Faith: The Life and Legacy of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik" (Jan. 21-4:30 p.m.), U.S. Director Ethan Isenberg charts the life of the man many consider the most influential rabbi of the 20th century.
"Toots" (Jan. 21?7 p.m.), U.S., about Toots Shor's famous New York nightclub. The filmmaker, Kristi Jacobson is Shor's granddaughter.
"Three Mothers" (Jan. 22?7 p.m.), Israel. Rose, Flora and Yasmin were born as triplets 60 years ago in Alexandria, Egypt. Today, in Israel, they live together in an apartment without men and without children. One after the other, director Dina Zvi-Riklis delivers the three women to "This Is Your Life," a place where people recount their memoirs
"From Shtetl to Swing" (Jan. 23?7 p.m.), France/U.S. Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir explores the birth of American popular music by turn-of-the-century immigrants, tracing the blending of Yiddishklezmorim with African-American melody and rhythms that created new version of ragtime, stride, jazz and swing.
"To Russian, Asses and Others" (Jan 23?following previous film), France. Francois Levy-Kuentz retraces the life of Marc Chagall, including rare footage of Chagall being interviewed as he paints.
"Maurice Sendak and All His Wild Things" (Jan. 24?7 p.m.), U.S. Director Herbert Danska captures the essence of a creative genius in a film that reveals the influence of Sendak's Brooklyn childhood on his work as a children's author, as well as in theater, film, television, opera and ballet. This documentary is preceded by five short films by Sendak: "Alligators All Around," "One Was Johnny," "Pierre," "In the Night Kitchen" and "Where the Wild Things Are."
"Garden of the Finzi Continis" (Jan. 25?7 p.m.), Italy. Vittorio De Sica explores the human dimensions of anti-Semitism during the Mussolini regime.
"Close to Home" (Jan. 27?7 p.m.), Israel. Director Vidi Bilus' coming-of-age story about friendship offers insights in the Israeli woman's military experience and Israeli-Palestinian relationships in tense times.
"I Only Wanted to Live" (Jan. 28?7 p.m.), Italy/U.S./Switzerland. Mimmo Calopresti relies on testimonies collected by Steven Spielberg and the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education to tell the stories of nine Italian survivors of Nazi concentration camps. Of the nearly 7,000 Italian Jews sent to concentration camps, only 837 survived.
"The Shtetl That's No Longer There" (Jan. 28, following previous film), Netherlands/Spain. In director Heddy Honigman's film, a mother busy preparing typical Jewish food tells the story of her family, which immigrated from Poland to Peru and then the Netherlands.
"Fateless" (Jan. 28?4 p.m.), Hungary. Director Lajos Koltai based this film on Imre Kert?sz's novel about his life in German concentration camp and his postwar struggle reconcile his experiences.
"What a Wonderful Place" (Jan. 28?7 p.m.), Israel. Eyal Halfond 2005 Oscar contender highlights the difficulties foreign workers experience in contemporary Israel. The film has received high praise for storytelling that is at once universal and specific.
"The Tribe" (Jan. 28, following previous film), U.S. Director Tiffany Shlain explains what Barbie has to teach us about American Jewish identity and Jewish mothers.
Unlike in previous years, all of the films in this year's Portland Jewish Film Festival will be screened at the Whitsell Auditorium at the Portland Art Museum.