Rutgers Jewish Film Festival 2012 Summary

Presented by: The Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life with support from the Karma Foundation

The following critically acclaimed, international dramatic and documentary films were featured at the 2009 Rutgers Jewish Film Festival:

A Secret

France, 2007, 35mm, 110 min.
French with English subtitles
Director: Claude Miller

A Secret follows the saga of a Jewish family in post-World War II Paris. François, a solitary, imaginative child, invents a brother for himself as well as the story of his parents’ past. On his fifteenth birthday, he discovers a dark family secret that ties his family’s history to the Holocaust and shatters his illusions forever. Adapted from Philippe Grimbert’s celebrated novel, Memory.

Waltz with Bashir

Israel/France/Germany, 2008, 35mm, 87 min.
Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Ari Folman

In this stunning animated documentary, director Ari Folman offers a memoir shaped by his own experience as a soldier in Lebanon who witnessed the civilian massacres in the summer of 1982. With his own memory of the tragedy limited to a recurring nightmare, Folman pieces together flashbacks shared by fellow Israeli soldiers in order to confront history and his own culpability during the war.

Lemon Tree

Israel/Germany/France, 2008, 35mm, 106 min.
Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
Director: Eran Riklis

When the Israeli defense minister builds a new home alongside Salma’s lemon grove, security forces declare the Palestinian widow’s trees a threat to his safety. As she takes her case to the Israeli Supreme Court, Salma finds both forbidden romance and an unexpected ally. Based on real events, Lemon Tree explores the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Yoo Hoo Mrs. Goldberg

USA, 2008, DVD, 92 min.
English
Director: Aviva Kempner

This documentary pays fitting tribute to the legendary Gertrude Berg, creator and star of the long-running television program The Goldbergs. A pioneer in a male-driven industry, Berg took home the first Best Actress Emmy and invented product placement. Berg’s appeal as Jewish mother extraordinaire transcended both race and religion.

The Goldbergs

USA, 1949, format, 120 min. (30 min each). Black & white.
English
Director: Gertrude Berg

The Goldbergs, a brilliant show created by and starring Gertrude Berg, premiered on radio in 1929 and on TV in 1949. Gertrude Berg was exceptional as the Jewish mother Molly Goldberg, who dispensed advice and a whole lot of common sense as she chatted with neighbors outside the window of her tenement building in the Bronx. Three archival episodes will be screened in this program.

The Little Traitor

Israel/USA, 2008, 35mm, 89 min.
Hebrew and English with English subtitles
Director: Lynn Roth

Based on a novel by Amos Oz and set in the final months of the British Mandate of Palestine, The Little Traitor is the lyrical story of an unlikely friendship between an English sergeant and a twelve-year-old boy who longs for Israel’s statehood. Caught between his hatred of the British and his affection for Sergeant Dunlop, Proffy soon discovers that the course of his young life has been changed forever.

Gevald!

Israel, 2009, DVD, 50 min.
Hebrew with English subtitles
Directors: Ron Ofer & Yohai Hakak

Gevald! juxtaposes the experiences of two community leaders: a radical anti-Israel organizer and a veteran politician in the Knesset. Both find their perspectives challenged as national elections approach.

The Rabbi's Daughter and the Midwife

Israel, 2009, DVD, 50 min.
Hebrew with English subtitles
Directors: Ron Ofer & Yohai Hakak

The Rabbi’s Daughter and the Midwife offers a portrait of two women who create positive change from within their community. One, the daughter of Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef, establishes Israel’s first Ultra-Orthodox academic institution of higher education, and the other, a nurse and midwife, creates an internationally recognized charitable foundation.

In Search of the Bene Israel

USA, 2008, DVD, 38 min.
English, Hindi with English subtitles
Director: Sadia Sheperd

This moving personal documentary follows the filmmaker’s soulful journey to India, where she encounters the 2,000-year-old Bene Israel community of her grandmother’s heritage. The film is an affectionate portrayal of a community in transition.

The Fire Within: Jews in the Amazonian Rain Forest

Peru 2008, DVD, 60 min.
Spanish with English subtitles
Director: Lorry Salcedo Mitrani

The Fire Within traces the remarkable story of the descendants of Moroccan Jewish adventurers who remained in the rain forest after the rubber boom of the1800s. The film provides a fascinating glimpse of this lost Jewish community as it moves from Peru to Israel after its “rediscovery” by the wider Jewish world.

And Along Come Tourists

Germany, 2007, 35mm, 85 min.
English, German with English subtitles
Director: Robert Thalheim

And Along Come Tourists provides a fascinating glimpse behind the scenes at the culture of Holocaust memory at one of its most important sites: Auschwitz. This drama follows the discoveries that a young German makes when he spends a year of national service as an intern at the former death camp, now the most widely visited site in Poland. This film provides probing insight into what the Holocaust has come to mean to Poles and Germans at the turn of the twenty-first century.

The Holocaust Tourist

UK, 2005, , DVD, 10 min.
English
Director: Jes Benstock

A wry animated documentary that looks at the post-Holocaust legacy in Poland. A whistle-stop tour that includes tour buses at Auschwitz and Krakow’s kitsch Judaica, questions how tourism may be changing history.

Refusenik

USA 2008, 35mm, 116 min.
English, Russian, Hebrew with English subtitles
Director: Laura Bialis

At the height of the Cold War, a grassroots movement to liberate Soviet Jewry from the repressive, anti-Semitic Communist regime began a thirty-year struggle that unquestionably altered the global human-rights landscape. Refusenik, the first documentary to chronicle this defining period of Jewish activism, interweaves personal accounts from both sides of the Iron Curtain to demonstrate the power of the individual to change the world.

Being Jewish in France

France 2008, DVD, 185 min.
French with English subtitles
Director: Yves Jeuland

This sweeping film explores the rich and complex history of Jews in the first country ever to grant them citizenship. Moving from the French Revolution and the Dreyfus Affair to Vichy collaboration with the Nazis and modern charges of rising anti-Semitism, Being Jewish in France presents a powerful selection of archival material, including clips from classic French cinema, and vivid interviews with leading French politicians, intellectuals, and artists.

Amnon's Journey

Israel, 2009, DVD, 52 min.
French, Hebrew, English with English subtitles
Director: Jean-Marie Hosatte

For ten years, master violin maker Amnon Weinstein went in search of violins played by Jews in the ghettos, camps, and forests during the Holocaust. He lovingly restored the instruments in his Tel Aviv workshop, bringing them back to life. This moving documentary depicts the intricate relationship between musicians and their instruments while giving voice to a lost generation. The film features virtuosos Shlomo Mintz, Yair Dalal, and Cihat Askin.

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Film Festival 2009 Summary