A Jewish Film Festival in Moscow
By
Barbara Shulgasser
(cont'd from page 3)--
Maybe Muscovites just have trouble with numbers. In many shops the salespeople use both a cash register and an abacus. You can’t be too careful.
To describe the Rossiya as a Kafkaesque nightmare is to malign an already misunderstood writer. Built in 1970, it has all the charm of an airplane hangar but is much less comprehensible in design. Taxi drivers must be told which of the four entrances a guest requires (east, west, etc.) or the guest may be doomed to wander through the undifferentiated hallways, never to be found. On her second day there, Aviva Kempner, producer of Partisans of Vilna, said she got lost on the way to the opening night party. She was in tears of frustration when another festival person rescued her.
The Rossiya faces Red Square, the site of St. Basil’s Cathedral. The story goes that this ornate church was built by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. He hired five architects to erect five spires topped by those famous onion-dome swirls, When the project was completed, Ivan, true to his nickname, had the architects blinded so they would never again build anything as beautiful. The architects of the Rossiya were evidently blinded before they designed the hotel.
The Soviets tend to solve problems via the most circuitous route. When American director Steve Gomer, whose SWEET LORRAINE won a prize at the Tokyo Film Festival in 1987, learned that his film would be simultaneously translated rather than subtitled, he was mystified. The Soviets turn the volume down on foreign films so someone can read a Russian script over the dialogue. “It was like a UN debate,” said Gomer, “like an argument was going on that was too important to stop at the same time a movie was being shown.”
Despite the odd presentation, Gomer was delighted by the response. “It was really wonderful. I wasn’t expecting anything, but a bunch of people came up to me after and seemed to have been affected or moved. They had tears in their eyes. It moved me. Of course the only people who come up to you are the ones who were moved. No one’s going to say to you, ‘What a waste of two hours.’”
The dichotomy of the public and private Soviet persona fascinated Gomer. On the one hand he was appalled when the impatient driver of his taxi tried to knock over an old woman who was hobbling across a street.
On the other hand, he found the Russians he met to be warm and generous when he spent time with them alone. Before leaving for Leningrad, Gomer was happily plastered at the closing night party. Carrying a bottle of champagne under his arm, he greeted three Russians who immediately poured him a glass of vodka and then served him a plate of salt with a lemon slice, suggesting that he drink it margarita style. The boyish Gomer, giggling, threw his head back and downed the vodka. Then he said to an American nearby, “I love these guys,” and added almost soberly, “I don’t know if they like me, or if they think I’m an asshole,” and burst into laughter.
Like Gomer, many participants had memorable encounters with Russians. Several visited a 100-year-old synagogue on a Sabbath. Many of the congregants, recognizing foreigners by their clothes, tried to make conversation in broken Yiddish or German. They seemed desperate for news of the outside world. Manya Starr said that she opened a pew box where prayer books are kept and found a bottle of vodka.
How much things have changed in the Soviet Union is a matter of debate. People are allowed to express opinions these days, but the impact of all this dialogue seems negligible.
“It’s as if they’re afraid to go out on a limb, afraid to reveal themselves, to take initiative,” Kaufman said. Askoldov, director of the acclaimed but controversial COMMISSAR, still can’t get another film project going. Plotkin and Kaufman visited him at his Moscow home and reported that he seems to be blacklisted.
“He’s a broken man,” said Plotkin. Anyway, initiative does not seem to be an essential quality for a filmmaker in the Soviet Union. An official at Mosfilm, one of the country’s government run studios, said the 110 directors on staff receive monthly salaries. They could earn more if they directed more films, but this practice would be viewed as artistically degrading. “If he really cares for his work, an artistic man needs some time to think things over in between projects,” the official explained.
The aversion to stirring up controversy also led to a lack of publicity for the festival. “There was a lot of fear about putting the word ‘Jew’ in big letters,” said Snitow. “It’s a time of turmoil and they were worried. Back in October even ASK wanted it to be called ‘A Program of Films by ASK and JFF.’” “Actually, we were very lucky that the city council threatened us,” Snitow observed. “It got people interested. If things happen easily here people mistrust because it seems official.”
According to festival organizers 50,000 people attended the screenings. Many of the programs held in four different theatres (seating from 500 to 1,400) were sold out. They added that there was no reason to believe that the audiences were primarily Jewish. Muscovites are great film enthusiasts and the festival provided a rare look at foreign films, the kind rarely shown in the Soviet Union.
Paul
Mazursky introduced the screening of his Enemies: A LOVE STORY with
the energy and aplomb of a practiced stand-up comic.
“This is a film about Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust and came to New York in 1949,” he began. “I feel you’re a very brave people and I admire your courage in your day-to-day life. And I admire my courage at being able to survive a week at Hotel Rossiya. I can’t find my room, the hotel’s so big.” When the laughter abated, he added, “You’ll see that New York in 1949 looks like Moscow today.”
ENEMIES received a warm reception. So did BEYOND THE WALLS, Israeli director Uri Barbash’s parable about the clash between Arab and Jew in Israel. “It was a festival favorite,” Kaufman said.
Other hits were AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS, and producer Mindy Affrime’s TELL ME A RIDDLE, (directed by Lee Grant, who did not attend), which was met with prolonged applause. “They wouldn’t let the filmmaker go,” said Kaufman.
Exhausted and enervated, the festival directors remained ambivalent about their accomplishment.
“I wouldn’t say that I’m happy,” said a weary-looking Kaufman. “Not so much happy as emotionally overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from Jews and non-Jews here. I’m certainly relieved that the Festival happened but it still doesn’t mean that the situation of Soviet Jews is immediately changed.”
“It’s clear that while the Festival has a different meaning here than it does in the United States, it’s really just an amplification. The goals are exactly the same: we’re using film as a catalyst for discussion. And to reach unaffiliated Jews. It’s just the context that makes it more intense.”
Kaufman was not the only one to wax philosophical during the Festival’s final days. Amram Nowack, director of ISAAC IN AMERICA, heard his wife, Manya Starr, being asked if she was pleased with the response to their film.
“It’s what Isaac said after he won the Nobel Prize,” Nowack interjected cheerily. “People kept asking him over and over if he was pleased. ‘I’m pleased, I’m pleased,’” he quoted Singer, “‘and now I’m just the same schlemiel as I always was.’”
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