Festival Archives - 2012

Summary:
Jerusalem and Gaza - less than a hundred kilometers separate the two cities; home to Tal, a 17 year old recent French immigrant to Jerusalem, and Naïm, a 20 year old Palestinian confined to Gaza. After witnessing a bombing at her local café, Tal refuses to accept that only hatred can exist between these two peoples. She slips a message into a bottle, thrown into the Gaza Sea, that... more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 100 minutes

Summary:
Nat Silver, transcending his sweatshop origins, becomes a debonair and fabulously wealthy man living on Central Park West. But Nat is unlucky in love and seemingly ambivalent about the opposite sex, a condition that we learn from his mother "runs in the family." Desperate after seven broken engagements, he reinvents himself as a match-maker, hoping at least to make others happy. This hilarious... more details »

Genre: Musical Comedy
Run time: 87 minutes

Summary:
Jeremy, a young Ethiopian rap artist, attempts to change the low self-image of the Ethiopian community in Israel. Through music he connects lost Ethiopian youth to their identity and to their parents. Likewise, he tries to stimulate the Kesses, the Ethiopian Rabbis, to fight for their lost spiritual status. more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 53 minutes

Summary:
DEFIANT REQUIEM tells the little-known story of the Nazi concentration camp, Terezin. Led by imprisoned conductor Rafael Schächter, the inmates of Terezin fought back...with art and music. Through hunger, disease and slave labor, the Jewish inmates of Terezin hold onto their humanity by staging plays, composing opera and using paper and ink to record the horrors around them. This creative... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 85 minutes

Summary:
There's always an uplifting feeling when we see someone (even a fictional a character) find the courage to be true to themselves. It's something we all aspire to do. The romantic comedy Dorfman will not disappoint in this regard. Sara Rue (Deb) becomes a whole person and we get to take part. Deb leaves the safety of the San Fernando Valley to explore the unknown of a revitalized downtown Los... more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 91 minutes

Summary:
JULY 4, 1976 ENTEBBE, UGANDA. Led by Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan Netanyahu, crack Israeli commandos race from their airplanes covered by the midnight darkness. Methodically, they approach a non-descript airline terminal, burst inside, killing the stunned terrorists. Helpless and shocked, 103 hostages lift their heads and gratefully weep at the mesmerizing sight of their saviors. As the alarms... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 87 minutes

Summary:
The song you thought you knew.The story you won’t believe. It is instantly recognizable - musical shorthand for anything Jewish, a happy party tune that you dance to at weddings and bar mitzvahs and even Major League baseball games. It conjures up smiles, memories of generations past, and no shortage of eye rolling. But as audiences will discover, the song is much more than a tale of... more details »

Genre: Documentary Music
Run time: 73 minutes

Summary:
Muslim teen Ali Messalam and his family move into Berlin’s Kreuzberg area, where he is pressured by his friends to vandalize the apartment of his elderly, feisty Russian neighbor, Alexander Zamskoy. To avoid being deported, Ali’s parents send him back to Zamskoy’s place to repair the damage. This warm coming-of-age story, inspired by two real people, is a stirring feature debut... more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 94 minutes

Summary:
Lia van Leer has led a remarkable life. Born in 1924 in what is now Moldovia, her parents sent her to live in Israel, where she survived the war, but never saw them again. This compelling portrait traces van Leer’s life and passion for cinema beginning in the 1950s when she and her husband Wim founded several film clubs followed by the Israel Film Archive and cinematheques in Haifa, Tel... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 65 minutes

Summary:
Ilan, an astrophysics professor, is married to the younger and very beautiful Naomi. One day, he finds out that his wife has a lover... A film about guilt, love and unlimited devotion. Based on the best-selling novel by Edna Mazya, one of Israel's most successful playwrights. more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 102 minutes

Summary:
Academy Award winning best director (“The Artist”) Michel Hazanavicius and best actor Jean Dujardin made this politically incorrect spy spoof.  With perfect casting and set decoration, the French secret agent OSS 117 (in a not so subtle reference to Bond’s 007) is sent on a mission to Brazil to track down a Nazi held microfilm containing the names of French Nazi... more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 97 minutes

Summary:
This new documentary follows the lives and struggles of the emerging Jewish community in Nigeria. With the introduction of the Internet in Nigerian society, young Igbo men began to research their history and noticed a pattern of similarities between Igbo and Jewish traditions. This discovery gave rise to Igbo shaking off years of Colonial Christianity and fueling a movement toward Jewish... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 95 minutes

Summary:
After a lifetime dedicated to art, bringing her international recognition and awards, Lilian Broca returns to the country of her birth, Romania, for the first time in 52 years. The film employs dramatic “flashback” recreations of Lilian’s past, representing memories of her experiences as a child, teenager and adult, as well as her search to understand religion, mythology,... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 50 minutes

Summary:
A dispute between an assimilated Jew and an angry Hassidic Jew erupts in present day Montreal. They look to the wise and perceptive local Rabbi to find a resolution. A comedy with surprise guests. Sorry Rabbi Plays with Dorfman Sunday Nov.11 at 9:15pm and on Thursday Nov.15 at 3:45pm more details »

Genre: Narrative
Run time: 6 minutes

Summary:
Jack Fuchs, at his lucid 88 years of age, is one of the few survivors of the extermination camps during the Second World War who, today, lives in Buenos Aires. After four decades and revisiting Lodz, Poland, he began telling his touching story. The movie is a testimony of his experience along with different cinematographic resources which will connect aesthetics of pictorial animation, family... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 75 minutes

Summary:
A meticulous examination of rising anti-Jewish ideology. Filmmaker Gloria Z. Greenfield travels from Israel to Europe to North America, covering this phenomenon from all angles, including historic Christian and contemporary Islamic polemics against Jews, the proliferation of anti-Israel bias in academia and cultural institutions, misinformation campaigns and state-sanctioned calls for the... more details »

Genre: Documentary
Run time: 82 minutes