Is it hot in here, or am I the only one dressed for Poland in the 17th century?
Yisrael Campbell looks more like a rabbi than a comedian, but don’t be fooled by the big black hat, frock coat and Hasidic side-curls. Born Chris Campbell, the son of an ex-nun and a Catholic schoolteacher, he converted to Judaism not once, but three times – Reform, Conservative and Orhodox. His spiritual journey began as a drug-drenched teenager in Philadelphia and ended in Jerusalem among the suicide bombs of the Palestinian intifada. So what’s to laugh about? it’s the way he tells it. Circumcise Me is a hilarious, seraching and moving sotry of one man’s quest for spiritual enlightenment against the bewildering backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (Directed by David Blumenfeld & Mathew Kalman)
Advice and Dissent
(USA, 2002, Color, English, 21 mins.)
Goldman, a frustrated businessman, tries to end his marriage by asking his Rabbi to place a curse on his wife. The Rabbi refuses, but gives Goldman peculiar advice on how to do away with her, setting into motion a series of unexpected events. A romantic comedy starring Eli Wallach, Rebecca Pidgeon and John Pankow. (Directed by Leib Cohen)
Eli, a single religious guy, is forced to go out on a blind date. He picks up the wrong girl, and the two of them spend a bizarre evening driving around the streets of Jerusalem. A romantic comedy about dating the orthodox way. (Directed by Ilan Eshkoli)
First Prize for Short Film, Israel Film Festival in New York and Los Angeles 2004 Jury Citation, Girona Film Festival, Jewish Competition, Spain 2004
(Germany, 2007, Color, German w/English subtitles, 98 mins.)
Based on the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian. After getting arrested and then being sent to a German concentration camp in 1944, Sal is forced to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeit operation set up to flood and destroy the Allied economies. “Operation Bernhard” was born. It became the biggest counterfeit money scam of all times.
As the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiter’s workshop.
The prisoners had a choice: if they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive, as first-class prisoners in a “golden cage” with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For the counterfeiters, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well. (Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky)
2008 Academy Award Winner for Best Foreign Language Film Official Selection 2007 Telluride Film Festival Official Selection 2007 Toronto International Film Festival
Speaker: Kenneth Hoffman, Director of Education, National World War II Museum, New Orleans
Unsettled presents the historic 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip through the eyes of six young people. Three are settlers determined to stay. Two are soldiers with different feelings about the order to evict Jews from their homes. One is an activist whose sister was killed by a terrorist bombing and sees the withdrawal as the first step towards peace. These twenty-something surfers, soldiers and settlers are barely out of their adolescence, and yet they occupy center stage in a national drama as both the vanguard resisting the eviction, and the soldiers executing it.
Director Adam Hootnick worked for MTV News prior to shooting Unsettled on his own. The driving narrative style and songs by Matisyahu propel this dramatic story forward, as a generation in its twenties faces a defining moment.
Arranged centers on the friendship of an orthodox Jewish woman and a Muslim woman who are both starting their careers as first-year teachers in a Brooklyn public school. Over the course of the year they learn they share much in common, not least of which is that they are both going through arranged marriages. The story shows the struggles both women face as religiously observant young women when interacting with an unsympathetic secular world. Similarly, the girls’ parents have a hard time accepting tthat their daughters could be friends. The film’s uplifting tenor examines religious differences in contemporary situations, with respect and understanding. (Directed by Diane Crespo & Stefan )
2003 Best Script Award – FIPA-Biarritz Film Festival, France Best Feature Film Brooklyn International Film Festival Berkshire International Film Festival Audience Award
So Long Are You Young charts the remarkable journey of a poem written in 1917 by Samuel Ullman, a humble German Jewish immigrant who lived in Birmingham, Alabama. While unsuccessful in business, Ullman was active in community service, founding a reform synagogue, serving as a city alderman and helping establish Birmingham’s first all-black public high school. Twenty years after his death, his poem, Youth, was discovered by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and its message of hope spread across a demoralized post-war Japan. Ullman’s words went on to influence politicians and prominent businessmen the world over, including former South Korean president Kim Dae-jung, Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita and Bobby Kennedy. Layered with interviews, historical footage and photographs, and a fascinating timeline of Ullman’s life, So Long Are You Young is an expressive and heartfelt celebration of a little-known literary sensation. (Directed by Judith Schaefe)
Got Next
(USA, 2007, Color, English, 10 mins.)
If you’re going to drive the lane, make sure your yarmulke is securley fastened! Inspired by a true story, an uplifting tale about the day a group of 16-year-old black teens playing street-basketball at a court in Harlem cross paths with a lone 16-year-old white, Jewish kid who wants to play in their next pick-up game. (Directed by Fred Strype)
Thursday, January 22, 2009 8:30 & 10:30 AM, BREC Theater, Independence Park, Baton Rouge
Nicholas Winton: The Power of Good
(Czech Republic, 2002, English, 64 mins.)
In the fall of 1938, Nicholas Winton took a pleasure trip to Prague, Czechoslovakia. He saw that Czech children in the Sudetenland were stateless. He understood that these refugee children would soon be doomed by Hitler. Although Winton was only 28 years old, he knew he had to take action. He devised a rescue operation to save these children. This inspiring documentary tells how an ordinary man took extraordinary action. (Directed by Matej Mina)
International2002 Emmy Awards 2002 Best Documentary Trilobit Prize 2002 Czech Repulbic, Slovak Film Critic’s Prize Igric 2002
Speaker: Magie Furst, The Kindertransport Association
