Press
Release |
18th Annual
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 1998
Festival Overview
18th Annual San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
San Francisco, CA -
Films and videos
from around the globe, including several US and world premieres, will be
presented at the 18th Annual Jewish Film Festival running July 16-24 at
the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro Street in San Francisco; July 25-30 at
the UC Theatre, 2036 University Avenue in Berkeley; July 26-30 at the
Park Theatre, 1275 El Camino Real in Menlo Park; and August 1-3 at the
Lark Theatre, 549 Magnolia Avenue in Larkspur. With special
"Israeli Cinema Now" and "Gay/Jewish Identity" programs, this
year's Festival will showcase the diversity and vitality of Jewish
culture around the world with special screenings, seminars, events, and
filmmaker appearances.
This year's Festival kicks off on Thursday, July 16 at the
Castro Theatre with the Bay Area premiere of Israeli director Yossi
Somer's update of the classic Yiddish folk tale, THE DYBBUK OF HOLY
APPLE FIELD. A mythic love story about modern-day tensions between the
secular and orthodox worlds set in present day Jerusalem, THE DYBBUK OF
HOLY APPLE FIELD is the tale of Hanan, a handsome 20 something
ear-pierced young man who falls in love with Lea, the beautiful daughter
of a religious community leader. Attending the screening of THE DYBBUK
OF HOLY APPLE FIELD will be Israeli director Yossi Somer.
The closing night film at this year's Festival is BEST MAN, Ira
Wohl's follow up to his Oscar-winning film of two decades ago, BEST BOY.
BEST BOY examined the life of his fifty-year-old mentally retarded
cousin, Philly, who lived at home with his parents, but at that time
began a four year journey toward greater independence, ultimately moving
into a group residence. BEST MAN
looks at Philly's life as it exists today, twenty years later. It
examines his relationships with his peers and his sister, Frances, and
documents Philly as he prepares for his Bar Mitzvah, signifying his
symbolic transition from boy to man. Director Ira Wohl will attend the
closing night screening
Other features at the Festival include Roger Hanin's SOLEIL,
starring Sophia Loren and Phillipe Noiret, in a semi-autobiographical
tale about a 13-year-old boy and his mother living under the
discriminatory laws of Algeria during World War II; ROTHCHILD'S VIOLIN,
the latest feature film from Edgardo Cozarinski, about Benjamin
Fleischmann, a talented student of Dmitri Shostakovich at the
prestigious Leningrad Conservatory who adapted the Chekhov story
"Rothschild's Violin" into a one-act opera; Ali Nassar's THE MILKY WAY,
the story of a young Palestinian man whose parents were killed while
fleeing their Galilee village during the 1948 war, who survives by
playing the village idiot but finds courage to confront the town muktar;
and the North American premiere of Eytan Fox's FLORENTENE, an Israeli
"Tales of the City," about a group of young people living in
Florentene (the new Bohemian district in South Tel Aviv), including a
former kibbutznik, a Russian immigrant and a renegade from an Orthodox
family.
Documentaries feature prominently at the festival this year as Jews
examine their identities, their cultures and their relationships with
themselves From renowned Hungarian found footage maven Péter
Forgács come FREE FALL, a collaboration between Forgács
and György Petó, a talented amateur motion picture
photographer who died more than 50 years ago. Petó filmed
prolifically in the Hungarian city of Szeged; Forgács' assemblage
of this found footage is an eloquent depiction of Hungary's Jewish
community before World War II.
Other documentaries include Marc-Henri
Wajnberg's EVGUENI KHALDEI: A PHOTOGRAPHER UNDER STALIN, a portrait of
the great Russian Jewish photographer who photographed Red Square, the
Budapest Ghetto, the fall of the Reichstag and the Nuremberg trials;
Arkhady Yakhnis's FAREWELL, the story of 90-year old Yankel who debates
leaving his Bessarabian shtetl to follow all his surviving relatives who
have emigrated to Israel; Chuck Olin's IN OUR OWN HANDS, a lively chronicle
of a courageous rag-tag group of Jewish
volunteers from Palestine who became a fighting unit in the British army
during World War II; the North American premiere of Sini Bar-David's THE
SOUTH: ALICE NEVER LIVED HERE, a beautiful story about the filmmaker's
return to her childhood neighborhood of housing projects in Jaffa; the
North American premiere of Ran Kotzer's AMOS GUTMAN, FILMMAKER, a
portrait of the remarkable Israeli director who died of AIDS in 1993;
and Simcha Jacobovici's HOLLYWOODISM: JEWS, MOVIES, AND THE AMERICAN
DREAM, an exploration of how a small group of Eastern European
immigrants impacted mass media, based on the Neil Gabler's book A
World of Their Own.
The festival will also showcase a strong program of Holocaust related
films: A LETTER WITHOUT WORDS and the World Premiere of a short, 17 RUE
SAINT FIACRE. Lisa Lewenz's A LETTER WITHOUT WORDS is a documentary
that incorporates footage shot by her grandmother in Germany that Lewenz
found in her grandmother's attic in 1981. Ella Arnhold Lewenz used some
of the earliest known color movie film to document life in Germany in
the 1920's and 30's. Her footage provides a fascinating glimpse into
the lives of German-Jewish aristocracy, including images of Albert
Einstein, Rabbi Leo Baeck, and actress Brigitte Helm. Daniel Meyers' 17
RUE SAINT FIACRE tells the true story of a "conspiracy of goodness" by
working class French Catholics who sheltered and loved Rachel and Leon
Melmed, the only Jews in their small French town who remained alive
after 1942.
Other highlights of this year's festival include two sidebars with
concurrent seminars: Israeli Cinema Now -- Ethnicity and Politics
and Queer Culture: Jews Engendering Change. Israeli Cinema
Now , a program which coincides with the 50th anniversary of Israel,
consists of 13 Israeli films by and about Moroccan, Ethiopian, Russian,
Palestinian and Sephardic Israelis, and a panel of Israeli filmmakers at
the UC Theatre on Monday, July 27 at 8:45 PM. Queer Jews Creating
Change consists of 7 films that explore how Jews in Israel and
North America express their Lesbian or Gay identities, and a panel of
Israeli and American journalists and filmmakers at the Castro Theatre on
Tuesday, July 21st at 8:45 PM.
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival is the oldest, largest and
most prestigious festival of its kind in the world. The Festival's goal
is to provide a distinguished showcase for new independent Jewish cinema
and to create a forum where audiences can grapple with identity and
build bridges between communities. The Festival has presented 25 films
to over one million viewers on public television; and works year-round
as a resource center for contemporary Jewish-subject cinema. Last
summer, more than 33,000 people attended the Festival. This year, the
Jewish Film Festival continues its tradition of Opening and Closing
night parties, free matinees, and post-film discussions with
filmmakers.
Many of the films' directors will attend screenings. Advance series
and group ticket rates are available. For ticket information, please
telephone the Festival at (415) 621-0556. Or visit the Jewish
Film Festival website www.sfjff.org
|
