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home > calendar > boston jewish film festival
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| | Emily Watson (pictured above) plays Russian Jewish poet Evgenia Ginzburg in Marleen Gorris's Within the Whirlwind. Screens on Nov 15, 7 pm. | |
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The Boston Jewish Film Festival at the MFA November 5-15
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, celebrates the 21st annual Boston Jewish Film Festival as it presents a wide range of films exploring themes of "home." These films survey families, faith, nationalities, immigration, and exile as facets of powerful stories of "home."
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Complete MFA Schedule
Nov 5, 7 pm Room and a Half by Andrey Khrzhanovsky
Forced into exile from the USSR in 1972, Josef Brodsky became US Poet Laureate and won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Arguably one of the greatest Russian poets of his time, he would feel right at home in Khrzhanovsky’s swirling dream of a film. By no means a straightforward biography, the film takes liberties with the poet’s life, merging live action, still photography, and animated silhouettes to mirror the sources of Brodsky’s own work. "Inspired by a poet, Khrzhanovsky has created his own poetry" (Variety).
Nov 7, 7 pm Eli & Ben by Ori Ravid preceded by Gefilte Fish by Shelly Kling
Twelve-year old Eli's world is turned upside down when his father Ben (Lior Ashkenazi), the city architect of suburban Herzliya, is charged with taking bribes. Ben is taken into custody before his son’s eyes. Eli is convinced his father is innocent, and struggles to see him released. Facing injustice, corruption, and pretense among both adults and children, Eli has to shape and stick to his own principles. In the process, he rediscovers his father and tastes the bitter sting of first love.
In Gefilte Fish, Gali must prepare gefilte fish for her fiancé as a good-luck charm for their marriage. When Gali becomes engaged to Yaron, her mother and grandmother give her a live carp to cook—but those big, pleading carp eyes beg Gali to abandon her family tradition.
Nov 7, 9:15 pm He's My Girl by Jean-Jacques Zilbermann
Ten years after their divorce, we check in on Simon and Rosalie, stars of his Man Is a Woman, from the 1998 Boston Jewish Film Festival. Simon’s Ashkenazi mother accepts that he's gay, but doesn’t realize that her pretty nurse is the Arab cross-dresser who steals her son’s heart. In the midst of this farce, Rosalie returns to Paris to star in Fiddler on the Roof with her new family in tow: a husband and the precocious son who Simon hasn’t seen in a decade. It’s a bit of of a tzimmes, a simmering stew, or fuss, of the tastiest sort. Discussion with the director and actor Mehdi Dehbi follows screening.
Nov 12, 6 pm Killing Kasztner: The Jew Who Dealt with Nazis by Gaylen Ross
A Hungarian Jew who saved nearly 1,700 Jews during WWII by striking a deal with the Nazis, Reszo Kasztner’s legacy has been mixed. In Israel, following his loss of a libel suit as “the man who sold his soul to the Devil,” he was subsequently assassinated. Documentary filmmaker Gaylen Ross (Blood Money: Switzerland’s Nazi Gold, from the 1997 Boston Jewish Film Festival) succeeds in convincing Kasztner’s killer speak candidly, for the first time in 50 years. She effectively puts Kasztner’s trial in its historical context and helps his family find some measure of solace. Discussion with the director follows screening.
Nov 12, 9 pm The Wolberg Family by Axelle Ropert
A highlight of this year’s Directors’ Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival, this "family melodrama" is actress and screenwriter Axelle Ropert’s first feature film. Simon Wolberg is mayor of a French provincial town, crazy in love with his wife, a nosy father to his lovely young daughter and dorky son, and a bit of an annoyance to his own father. Will his obsession with family cause him to unravel? When is it time to let go—or to leave?
Nov 15, 1 pm To Life by Shai Agosin
Emilia, a Mexican photographer, has been invited to visit her long-estranged father Isidoro and to attend his bar mitzvah—as he turns 80. Full of trepidation, she flies to breathtakingly scenic Valparaiso where she meets her father’s lively Chilean family. At the same time, she finds herself attracted to David, a man facing his own personal crisis. This bittersweet film sensitively portrays the pain and rewards that ensue when we become vulnerable enough to connect.
Nov 15, 3:15 pm The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return by David Ofek preceded by Toyland by Jochen Alexander Freydank
The collapse of Communism puts Nicolai, like thousands of other Romanians, out of work. He leaves his family to earn money in Israel. After three years as a "guest worker," tired of giving most of his pay to his employer, Nicolai becomes an "illegal." Caught and sent to prison, his life takes an abrupt turn. Noted documentarian David Ofek (The Hebrew Lesson from the 2007 Boston Jewish Film Festival) uses subtle irony to raise questions about who belongs in an increasingly diverse Israel.
Toyland is set in Germany in 1942. To protect her son, Marianne Meißner tries to convince him that their Jewish neighbors are going on a journey to Toyland. One morning her son has gone missing—along with the Jewish neighbors. Toyland is a film about guilt, responsibility and lies both big and small.
Nov 15, 5 pm How To: Be or Not to Be by Erga Netz preceded by Nes Gadol Project by Isaac Brown and Nadia Ramoutar
Composed of "five seasons and multi-cultures," this documentary goes in search of identity and tolerance by filming a unique theatre school in Amsterdam that draws 12 students from all over The Netherlands. Loes Hegger, their mentor, feeds them an idea from a 1907 Sholom Aleichem novel, The Bloody Hoax, in which a Jew and a gentile switch roles. In a culture that prides itself on openness, the students’ goal is to create meaningful art. The camera’s rapid motion and jump cuts echo the energy of these budding actors.
Inspired by Autism: The Musical, the Nes Gadol Project follows Talia as she approaches a school for mentally handicapped children with her bat mitzvah project. This deceptively simple, upbeat documentary chronicles the combined song-and-dance performance of Talia’s community theatre troupe and a group of special-needs students in Jacksonville, Florida. Discussion with cinematographers and editors Sean Donald and Glenn Banschbach follows screening.
Nov 15, 7 pm Within the Whirlwind by Marleen Gorris
From the bestselling memoirs of Russian Jewish poet Evgenia Ginzburg, Oscar-winning director Marleen Gorris (Antonia's Line) crafts a sweeping, epic drama. Emily Watson (Breaking the Waves) portrays Ginzburg as she falls from Communist grace. Betrayed by her husband, she is forced to abandon her two children to serve her sentence of 10 years’ hard labor in the desolate Soviet Gulag. Ulrich Tukur (The Lives of Others) plays the German doctor who is as much a prisoner as she, but who rekindles her passion for life. Discussion with Marleen Gorris and producer Christine Ruppert follows screening.
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More Information
Tickets: MFA, Festival, ICA, Coolidge Corner Theatre, and WGBH members, seniors, and students $10; general admission $12. Exceptions: closing night $20, $25. Friends of Film Scrips are not valid for any of The Boston Jewish Film Festival screenings.
For all after-hours programs, please use the State Street Corporation Fenway Entrance. MFA member tickets are sold at the Remis Auditorium ticket desk; nonmembers tickets are available at either the Fenway or Huntington Avenue ticket desks.
Museum Hours:
Monday and Tuesday 10 am-4:45 pm
Wednesday-Friday: 10 am- 9:45 pm
Saturday and Sunday: 10 am- 4:45 pm
Complete festival information is available at www.bjff.org..
The Boston Jewish Film Festival has grown from its inception in 1989 to become one of the world's finest showcases of films on Jewish themes. The Festival program explores Jewish identity, the current Jewish experience and the richness of Jewish culture in relation to a diverse modern world. |
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