Schedule Based
on the critically-acclaimed novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, EVERYTHING
IS ILLUMINATED tells the story of a young man's quest to find the woman
who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off
the map by the Nazi invasion. What starts out as a journey to piece together
one family's story under the most absurd circumstances turns into a surprisingly
meaningful journey with a powerful series of revelations – the importance
of remembrance, the perilous nature of secrets, the legacy of the Holocaust,
the meaning of friendship and, most importantly, love. The
entire world was surprised by last year's election of Hamas, a political
and military organisation, to lead the Palestinian people. Beyond political
analysis, filmmaker Pierre Rehov explores the real causes of this victory
and revisits the history of Palestinians and their mythologies. Having
spent months in Palestinian refugee camps, and asking questions to international
analysts, Rehov presents a much clearer view of the real causes of a constantly
derailed peace process. A very timely film given recent events in Israel. A
well-known writer at a progressive New York magazine decides to tackle
anti-Semitism in a unique way as his first assignment. Phillip Green (Gregory
Peck) pretends to be Jewish in order to write about the effects of bigotry.
From being refused a job and access to public accommodations, to his son
being verbally attacked and his fiancée expressing concern over
his assumed identity, Green soon learns what it means to be the object
of sectarian prejudice. The best of the few Hollywood treatments of anti-Semitism. Twenty-two
year-old Sasha's greatest wish is to become an Israeli. He has become
religious, changed his name to Yair and speaks only in Hebrew –
even when he is addressed in Russian. He has completely cut himself off
from his Russian past, including his father and his Russian friends. Now,
Yair is about to marry his Israeli girlfriend. But when Yair receives
a package from his aunt in the Ukraine, his world is shaken. Something
inside challenges everything Yair believes about himself and the person
he's tried to become. The revelation forces him to confront his religious
beliefs and journey back to the Russian identity he has fought to suppress. I'M
STILL HERE brings to life the diaries of young people who witnessed first-hand
the horrors of the Holocaust. Through an emotional montage of archival
footage, personal photos, and text from the diaries themselves, the film
celebrates a group of brave, young writers who refused to quietly disappear.
The film is scored by Moby, and the diaries are read by some of Hollywood's
most talented young actors today including Elijah Wood (EVERYTHING IS
ILLUMINATED), Ryan Gosling (THE BELIEVER, HKJFF '02), Kate Hudson and
Joaquin Phoenix. Original footage was shot in Vilnius, Lithuania in the
remnants of the old Jewish ghetto. Jewish
doctor Henryk Goldszmit, also known as Janusz Korczak, is a man of high
principles. He shouts at Nazi officers and frequently has to be persuaded
to save his own life. His orphanage, set up in a cramped school in the
Warsaw ghetto, provides shelter to 200 homeless Jewish children. Putting
his experimental educational methods into practice, he installs a kind
of children's self-government, whose justice is in big contrast to what
is happening outside the orphanage's doors. There, dozens of children
are dying or are being killed everyday and their naked bodies lie on the
street unattended. While the ghetto's mayor assures him that the orphanage
will be saved, Korczak raises food and money from the Jews who are still
relatively well-off. In the final roundup in the ghetto, Korczak refuses
to accept a Swiss passport and boards the deportation train to Treblinka
with his orphans. Marcelo
is a non-religious young man, an actor and a single parent to his 11-year-old
daughter, Lucy. He's desperately looking for someone to help him improve
his Hebrew accent so he can pass the auditions for an Israeli soap opera.
Anat, his religious Hebrew teacher, is probably the best solution but
it seems that she hates soap operas and is not so fond of her pupil either.
In fact, she has her own problems – mainly her mother, who is frantically
seeking a perfect match for her daughter who has, in her eyes, clearly
passed the proper wedding age. LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER is a charming
romantic comedy about a new immigrant from Argentina trying to balance
love, work and family. Based
upon the true story of Olga Benário, the Jewish German-born wife
of Brazilian communist leader Luís Carlos Prestes. During the dictatorship
of Getúlio Vargas (1930-1945), she was arrested and sent to Nazi
Germany where she died in a concentration camp. Olga's life is a history
of love, idealism and intolerance. Pesya
Goldfarb, on her 80th birthday, is determined to travel to her parents'
house located in Poland. Traveling with her teenage granddaughter, she
intends to find a golden necklace, which was hidden by her and her sister
on the day they were taken to Auschwitz. Upon returning to her childhood
home, Pesya must confront years of shame and decide whether or not to
reveal her secrets. Edik,
a Russian grafter, arrives in a small Crimean town looking for fictional
relatives to match up with a group of Jewish émigrés who
are seeking their ancestors. His main problem is that their birthplace
was destroyed in World War II, so the relatives are, indeed, fictional.
Logistical details can all be managed with help from the easily corrupted
local authorities. What can't be managed, however, are the relations that
develop between the returnees and their supposed relatives, which take
various, distinctly unexpected turns. A bubbly, black comedy featuring
92-year-old actress Esther Gorintin (VOYAGES, HKJFF '04). Winner
of 6 awards, Kinotavr Russian Open Film Festival, 2005 This
tragicomedy centers on two women of different generations with a common
mission in life: to find a space in their Israeli village’s Jewish
cemetery. Miriam Schwartz struggles for the right to be buried beside
her husband, the former head of a religious council, who committed suicide.
Anna is a young Russian beauty who seeks permission to fulfill her father's
dying wish to be buried in the same cemetery. But they are up against
an inflexible town council, bureaucratic procedures, the intolerance of
recent Russian émigrés, and religious extremism. None of
the men in their families can help them – Miriam's conniving West
Bank settler son, nor her pothead grandson and not Anna's uncle, a Russian
surgeon embittered by being forced to work as the town butcher. Not even
the Rabbi can help. No one is happy in THE SCHWARTZ DYNASTY, and the odds
are more than stacked against the heroines in their quest. The resolution
of all these conflicts is as unexpectedly delightful as it is powerfully
moving. Set
in Montreal, Mike is a neo-Nazi skinhead who is on trial for the racially
motivated murder of a Pakistani man. Danny is a liberal Jewish lawyer
appointed by the court to defend him. Mike and Danny are polar opposites.
As the drama unfolds, both men, as a result of their encounter with one
another, examine their consciences in depth. Neither is too pleased with
what he finds and both bury their faults until these flaws are forced,
once and for all, to the surface. Stars David Strathairn (GOOD NIGHT,
AND GOOD LUCK). Narrator
Yariv Nornberg, along with a team of archaeologists and eyewitnesses,
navigate through Polish geography, geology and history to find out the
truth behind something a store-owner told him about religious texts buried
in Polish soil – next to the infamous Auschwitz extermination camp.
The scene of the tale: Yeshayahu Yerod's shop in Israel. Yariv went there
to buy a flag, but upon hearing the story about buried treasure, he became
intrigued and "realized for the first time that Auschwitz had been
a lively town with a large Jewish community long before the camp turned
its name into a synonym for death." Yahaly Gat's documentary centers
on Yariv's journey to Poland in hopes of confirming whether or not Torah
scrolls were really hidden and to uncover whatever else lay underneath
the ruins of what was once the Great Synagogue, which was burned to the
ground when the Germans swept through the town. 10
Days in Gaza 18-J Everything
Is Illuminated From
the River to the Sea Gentleman's
Agreement Green
Chariot, A I'm
Still Here: Real Diaries… Korczak Like
a Fish Out of Water Olga Pesya's
Necklace Roots Schwartz
Dynasty, The Steel
Toes Treasure
in Auschwitz, A |