The Light Ahead

Sunday, March 13 @ 3:30 pm

This 1939 Yiddish film classic, made on the eve of World War II and newly restored by The National Center for Jewish Film, is at once romantic, expressionist, and painfully conscious of the danger about to engulf European Jews. Audaciously adapted from the work of novelist S. Y. Abramovitch whom Sholem Aleichem dubbed the grandfather of Yiddish literature, this luminous allegory of escape marries Edgar Ulmer’s masterful direction with superb acting by members of New York’s Artef and Yiddish Art Theaters. Film historian J. Hoberman calls Beverley and Opatoshu “perhaps the most beautiful couple in the history of Yiddish cinema…their scenes have a touching erotic chemistry.”
From the archive of The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF), this showing is the Louisiana Premiere of New Digital Restoration.

(1939, 94 min. Directors: Edgar G. Ulmer, Screenwriters: Shirley Ulmer, Edgar G. Ulmer, Chaver Paver, Yiddish with subtitles, General Audiences, All Ages Admitted)

Come downtown early and visit the USS KIDD Veterans Museum’s special exhibit, CINEMA JUDAICA: THE WAR YEARS, 1939-1949. The museum is open daily 9:30 to 3:30 and is on the Riverfront in Downtown Baton Rouge. Details on our main page (scroll to the bottom).

Join the BRJFF VIP Movie Club (below) and get a $2 discount coupon code for this show. Apply the code at time of purchase — online, by phone, or in person.