JEWISHFILM.2010 will present New England premieres of diverse, critically acclaimed films

JEWISHFILM.2010
The National Center for Jewish Film's 13th Annual Film Festival
April 7 - April 18, 2010
 
WALTHAM, Mass. – Local audiences will celebrate JEWISHFILM’s “Bar Mitzvah” year anniversary with a special event screening of the newly-restored 1935 Yiddish musical melodrama “Bar Mitzvah,” along with premieres of films about racism in sports, the consequences of forbidden love, Nazi killing squads, the mysteries of the brain, Israel’s ultra-Orthodox, and a sustained focus on the real and imagined lives of women in Israel, Argentina, Poland and Tunisia.
 
The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) and Brandeis University, in cooperation with The Consulate General of Israel to New England, will present JEWISHFILM.2010 The National Center for Jewish Film's 13th Annual Film Festival from April 7-18, 2010. All films will be screened at the Wasserman Cinematheque at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., with additional screenings at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art and Museum of Fine Arts.
 
Jewishfilm.2010 will present 13 films—six fiction feature films and seven documentaries, from six countries. All but one will be New England premiere screenings. Highlights include:
 
Writer-director-star Karin Albou (“Le Petite Jerusalem,” Cannes winner) mines her family's North African Sephardic roots in “The Wedding Song,” a taboo-breaking and visually stunning film set in 1942 Nazi-occupied Tunisia. The movie maps the intersection of Jewish and Arab cultures, and the power and fragility of female sexuality.
 
The debut features “Seven Minutes in Heaven” (Omri Givon, writer-director) and “Eyes Wide Open” (Haim Tabakman, director) showcase two of Israel’s best up-and-coming filmmakers. “Seven Minutes in Heaven” (Best Film, Haifa International Film Festival) is a brilliantly-crafted psychological thriller about a young Jerusalem woman struggling to reclaim her memory after a bus bombing left her clinically dead for seven minutes. Givon wrote the film after visiting a scrap metal graveyard for bombed-out buses destroyed in terrorist attacks.
 
“Eyes Wide Open,” the poignant story of an ultra-Orthodox butcher whose affair with his apprentice, has been admiringly compared to “Brokeback Mountain.” A New York Times Critics Pick and winner of the Best First Film at the 2010 Palm Springs International Film Festival, this soulful film stars three of Israel’s most popular young actors, and is fast becoming a cultural and artistic touchstone.
 
In commemoration of Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), Jewishfilm.2010 will present “Einsatzgruppen,” Michaël Prazan’s definitive, new documentary about the Nazi mobile killing units that murdered 1.5 million people. This important film features a great deal of never-seen-before archival film and photos taken by the perpetrators.
 
As it does each year, JEWISHFILM will premiere the NCJF’s most recent film restoration. This year’s film—the American-made 1935 Yiddish feature “Bar Mitzvah,” staring the legendary Boris Thomashefsky in his only film role—is a perfectly timed celebration of JEWISHFILM’s thirteenth (Bar Mitzvah year) anniversary. NCJF is the largest archive of Jewish film outside of Israel and “Bar Mitzvah” is its thirty-eighth Yiddish feature film restoration. The movie comes to Boston following two sold out screenings at Lincoln Center in New York. NCJF Executive Director Sharon Pucker Rivo and musician Hankus Netsky will host a Q&A.
 
JEWISHFILM.2010’s opening night film “Berlin ‘36," a drama inspired by the suspenseful, true story of Jewish high jumper and 1936 Olympic gold medal contender Gretel Bergmann, comes on the heels of the Vancouver Olympic Games. Special guest Susan Bachrach, curator of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s exhibition “Nazi Olympics, Berlin 1936,” will discuss the real story of the Nazi games and the relationship between the Olympics, nationalism, politics and race.
 
JEWISHFILM’s documentaries offer a diverse range of fascinating portraits, including rare profiles of four ultra-Orthodox community organizers (in “Gevald” and “The Rabbi’s Daughter and the Midwife”); a revealing look at Lena Küchlar, a young teacher whose progressive psychiatric methods saved dozens of child Holocaust survivors (in “My 100 Children”); and in “The Peretzniks,” a contemporary look at alumni of the Peretz School, an oasis of sorts for Jewish children in post-war Communist Poland. Director Slawomir Grünberg and Boston “Peretznik” Lilka Elbaum will be special guests.
 
In Petra Seeger’s film “In Search of Memory: The Neuroscientist Eric Kandel,” Dr. Kandel, winner of the Nobel Prize for his research into the brain's role in preserving memory, leaps off the screen with an exuberant curiosity and lust for life. The film will be screened as a special sneak preview, in advance of a Boston theatrical run.
 
Visiting filmmaker Scott Goldstein will discuss the subject of his multi-award-winning film “Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story.” Greenspun’s colorful life as the “give ’em hell” owner of the Las Vegas Sun would be unbelievable if it were fiction. He ran guns for the Haganah, worked with Bugsy Seigel and Howard Hughes, and was targeted by both Joseph McCarthy and the Watergate burglars.
 
The JEWISHFILM.2010 schedule is below; for film descriptions, trailers, and more information on guests, venues and ticketing, visit the NCJF Web site or call 781-736-8600. Photos and screeners available.

All Brandeis films will be shown at the Wasserman Cinematheque. Click here for directions and venue information.
 
OPENING NIGHT FILM
BERLIN ’36
Wednesday, April 7, 7 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Germany/UK | 2009 | 97 min | 35mm | German w/ English subtitles | Director: Kaspar Heidelbach
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest: Susan Bachrach, Curator, “Nazi Olympics, Berlin 1936,” U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Introduction: Detlef Gericke-Schoenhagen, Director, Geothe-Institut Boston
 
THE WEDDING SONG  / Le Chant des Mariées
Thursday, April 8, 7 p.m. @ The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston  
Sunday, April 11, 7:15 p.m. @ Brandeis University
France | 2008 | 84 min | 35mm | French, Arabic, German w/ English Subtitles | Director/Writer: Karin Albou
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
 
SEVEN MINUTES IN HEAVEN / Sheva Dakot Be Gan Eden
Saturday, April 10, 7:10 p.m. @ Museum of Fine Art, Boston
Wednesday, April 14, 7:30 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Israel/France/Hungary | 2008 | 94 min | 35mm | Hebrew w/ English Subtitles | Director/Writer: Omri Givon
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest at MFA: Nadav Tamir, Consul General of Israel to New England
 
EINSATZGRUPPEN: THE DEATH BRIGADES / Les Commandos de la Mort
Sunday, April 11, noon @ Brandeis University
YOM HASHOAH EVENT
France | 2009 | 180 min | Beta | English narration, French, German w/ English subtitles | Director: Michaël Prazan
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE – SECOND U.S. SCREENING
 
GEVALD! / THE RABBI’S DAUGHTER AND THE MIDWIFE
Sunday, April 11, 4:15 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Israel | 2009 | 50 min/each film | DigiBeta | Hebrew w/ English subtitles | Directors: Ron Ofer & Yohai Hakak
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest: Ilan Troen, Brandeis University
 
MY 100 CHILDREN / Me'ah Yeladim Sheli
Tuesday, April 13, 4:30 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Israel | 2003 | 68 min | DigiBeta | English, Hebrew & Polish w/ English subtitles | Directors: Amalia Margolin & Oshra Schwartz
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest: Joanna Michlic, Hadassah-Brandeis Institute
 
THE PERETZNIKS / Perecowicze
Wednesday, April 14, 4:45 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Poland/US | 2009 | 92 min | English, Polish & Hebrew w/ English subtitles | Director: Slawomir Grünberg
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guests: Filmmakers Slawomir Grünberg and Katka Reszke & “Peretznik” Lilka Elbaum
 
EYES WIDE OPEN / Eynayim Pekuhot
Friday, April 16, 7 p.m. @ The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston
Saturday, April 17, 8:30 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Israel/France/Germany | 2009 | 91 min | 35mm | Hebrew w/ English Subtitles | Director: Haim Tabakman
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest at Brandeis: Rony Yedidia, Deputy Consul General of Israel to New England
 
BAR MITZVAH
Sunday, April 18, 11:15 a.m. @ Brandeis University
USA | 1935 | 90 min | DigiBeta | Yiddish w/ new English subtitles | Director: Henry Lynn
New Restoration & Subtitles by NCJF
Celebrate JEWISHFILM’s “Bar Mitzvah year” anniversary with the New England Premiere of NCJF’s New Restoration
Special Guests: Sharon Pucker Rivo & Musician Hankus Netsky
 
CAMERA OBSCURA / La Cámara Oscura
Sunday, April 18, 4:30 p.m. @ Brandeis University
Argentina | 2008 | 86 min | DigiBeta | Spanish & Yiddish w/ English subtitles | Director: Maria Victoria Menis
Special Guest: Marjorie Agosin, Wellesley College
 
WHERE I STAND: THE HANK GREENSPUN STORY
Sunday, April 18, 1:45 p.m. @ Brandeis University
USA | 2008 | 98 min | DigiBeta | Director: Scott Goldstein
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Special Guest: Director Scott Goldstein
 
CLOSING NIGHT FILM
IN SEARCH OF MEMORY: THE NEUROSCIENTIST ERIC KANDEL
Sunday, April 18, 7 p.m. @ Brandeis University
USA/Germany | 2008 | 95 min | DigiBeta | English & German w/ English subtitles | Director: Petra Seeger
SNEAK PREVIEW