Reel News
VOLUME 1, NUMBER 1 - JUNE 2003
What's
Planned for 2003?
HKJFF Teams Up with the Italian Consulate
The World of Jewish Film Festivals
Have you seen "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"? Many people say it could easily have been "My Big Fat Jewish Wedding", "My Big Fat Italian Wedding", "My Big Fat Cuban Wedding"... well, you've got the idea.
If you liked that film, you'll love what we've got planned for our 4th
festival!The theme is COMEDY, and we're searching high and low around the world for the best old and new comedic films with Jewish themes. The centrepiece of this year's festival will be the film, "My Favourite Year," starring this year's Academy Award® honouree Peter O'Toole.
The story is loosely based on Mel Brooks' experiences as a junior comedy writer on the old Sid Caesar television show back in the 1950s. The real story goes that Sid had entrusted young Mel with looking after screen legend Errol Flynn ensuring he gets to the set on time and sober. As television was live in those days and Flynn had a reputation for being quite the lothario, this was no easy task, as you'll find out when you see the film. It's great fun!
But what does this have to do with the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival, you ask? Well, our special guest will be actress Lainie Kazan who played the mother of Mel Brooks' character in the film. Lainie is a riot and what is amazing about her is that she was only in her 30s when she starred in this film yet she convincingly portrayed a woman who was probably pushing 50 at the time.
Lainie
Kazan… Lainie Kazan… that name sure sounds familiar, right?
If you are one of the billions of people who has seen "My Big Fat
Greek Wedding," you will recognise Lainie as Maria Portokalos, the
bride's mother in the film!Lainie will be on hand to introduce "My Favourite Year" and answer any questions you may have about her career, and the many films and TV shows she has starred in… like "Beaches," "The Associate," "Beverly Hills, 90210," "The Nanny," "St. Elsewhere" (my personal favourite -- she played Mrs. Fiscus), and of course "My Big Fat Greek Wedding".
But
that's not all! On Sunday, November 23rd, we're going to hold our first
Bagels 'n Brunch Big Event
where Lainie will be our guest of honour. She will be speaking to us about
"Jewish Comedic Women in Film". You definitely won't want to
miss it!
For more information about this event and the rest of the Hong Kong Jewish
Film Festival, please visit our website at www.hkjewishfilmfest.org.
HKJFF
Teams Up with the Italian Consulate
The
Consulate General of Italy in Hong Kong with the assistance of The Hong
Kong Jewish Film Festival recently organised a special presentation of
the film THE RIGHTEOUS ENEMY in commemoration of Holocaust Memorial Day
in Italy.
The event, which was put on for the benefit of the Italian and Jewish
communities, was sold out in just a few days. It was a huge success as
almost everyone who was there learned about Italy's commitment to save
their Jewish countrymen from certain death at the hands of the Nazis during
World War II.
No sooner was this event over then the requests started coming into the
Festival to organise more such one-off nights during the year. Stay connected
to the Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival and you will find out about our
next special film presentation!
About THE RIGHTEOUS ENEMY...
This
1987 documentary tells the little-known story of Italy's role in saving
the lives of over forty thousand European Jews during World War II. Originating
as a personal inquiry by director Joseph Rochlitz (whose father was saved
by Italians), the film examines how Italian soldiers and high-ranking
diplomats refused to collaborate in the "final solution" in
Italy, Vichy France, Greece, and Croatia. Through war newsreels, interviews
with Italian officials and Jews who survived (including Nazi-hunter Serge
Klarsfeld, himself saved by the Italians), the film seeks to understand
the motives behind these acts of conscience. Above all, THE RIGHTEOUS
ENEMY demonstrates that individual morality can play a powerful role in
history.
"... thoughtful, carefully researched and in a way, warming ...
a compelling piece of work." - John Corry, The New York Times
The
World of Jewish Film Festivals
by
Howard Elias, festival director
Unless you have been sleeping under a rock these past few years, you have
probably heard about and hopefully attended the Hong Kong Jewish Film
Festival. Having recently completed its third festival, it is now the
largest annual event on the Hong Kong Jewish calendar, outdrawing even
the post-Yom Kippur community break fast (and that's big!).
When I came up with the idea to have a Jewish film festival in Hong Kong it was purely for a selfish motive. I was tired of missing out on the few good Jewish-themed films that were coming to the other film festivals here but were typically being shown on Shabbat or Passover. What I didn't count on was that so many other people, both religious and non-religious alike, felt the same way.
Jewish
communities around the world are quickly realising that a Jewish film
festival is a great way to reach out to everyone in their community no
matter their religious beliefs and practices, marital status, gender or
age. It seems that everyone loves a good film and if film can serve to
affiliate Jewish people to their community, then by all means, pass the
popcorn and let the show begin!
Janis
Plotkin, executive artistic director of the San Francisco Jewish Film
Festival, agrees. "Festivals like ours help foster a renaissance
in Jewish life, and to communicate images of Jewish identity that are
positive, relevant and authentic." Janis ought to know. Her festival
is the bubby (grandmother) of all the Jewish film festivals in
the world having celebrated its 22nd anniversary last summer.
There
are currently close to 70 Jewish film festivals in the world and almost
20 new festivals have started up in the last two years alone. Most of
them are in the United States but you can also find Jewish film festivals
in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the UK, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy,
Germany, Poland, Austria, South Africa, Australia and, of course, Israel.
From Melbourne to Miami, Vancouver to Vienna, and Johannesburg to Jerusalem,
there is a Jewish film festival going on somewhere in the world almost
every week!
That's
the good news. The bad news is that the boom in Jewish film festivals
has resulted in the festivals competing for many of the same films. While
there are dozens of Jewish-themed films being made every year, many festival
organisers prefer to screen the ones that the big festivals like San Francisco,
Boston, Toronto and Washington show, forgoing the student or independent
films and opting for the big budget ("big" being a relative
term) productions. But there are many excellent low budget films out there
and if you have attended our festival here, you have no doubt seen some
of them. To encourage the production and screening of such films by what
are often up-and-coming filmmakers, our festival started something that
is unique among Jewish film festivals. We award the director of the audience's
favourite documentary or short film with a prize of US$250 to provide
both financial and moral support. (This year's award went to Arnon Goldfinger
for "The Komediant". The film also won the Israeli Academy Award
for Best Documentary.) It is because of that, and the fact that we search
for and screen lesser-known Jewish-themed films, our festival is considered
to be up there with the big Jewish film festivals in importance.
Many of the larger Jewish film festivals have similar lofty missions.
The organisers of the San Francisco event make an effort to showcase local
Bay-area filmmakers. Similarly, the Toronto Jewish Film Festival features
Canadian filmmakers and the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival often runs
programmes featuring films from one or more of the Israeli film schools.
Every Jewish film festival relies upon donations from community members, foreign consulates and corporate sponsors and advertisers to keep going, and our festival is no different in that regard. However, every other festival but ours is either organised under the auspices of the local Jewish community centre or it is subvented by at least one local Jewish charity or philanthropic family. Certainly the lack of having a prime donor does present challenges to our festival but because we have such a supportive community, we are able to present a high-quality programme each year.
The other challenge our festival faces is finding out who owns the screening rights for many of the films. As most of the Jewish-themed films are made in the US, the distributors are usually located there too. However, those distributors' rights often cover just North America. For us, there either isn't a distributor for "the rest of the world" or the Asian distributor is based in Europe. Thank G-d for the Internet because without it, we wouldn't have been able to find all the films we have been able to see here.
Work
is well underway to plan the next Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival, which
will move to the end of November (2003) so as not to interfere with all
the other arts events that seem to take place in Hong Kong during March.
The theme of the event will be Jewish Comedy in Film and the plan is to
have Lainie Kazan (the bride's mother from "My Big Fat Greek Wedding")
come and present one of her great films, "My Favorite Year".
In
the meantime, if you happen to be travelling in the next few months, take
the time and check out some of the other Jewish film festivals that are
being held elsewhere. Here is a listing of a few of them:
Israel Film Festival (NYC) -- June 19 - July 3
Jewish Cultural Festival -- July 28 - July 6
Rochester (NY) Jewish Film Festival -- July 13 - 20
San Francisco Jewish Film Festival -- July 17 - 24
Enjoy!
If you would like to help organise our next event, please contact Howard at 2554-7070 or send him an email to howard@hkjewishfilmfest.org.