French with German subtitles

In 1892, Russian-Jewish immigrants debark from a ship in Buenos Aires. There on the gangplank, just short of the dock, a woman gives birth to a baby girl. Thus begins the girl’s life as an outsider. Shunted aside by a mother visibly pained by her plain, awkward daughter, Gertrudis grows into a hyper-self-conscious woman, even as she becomes the wife of a wealthy Jewish planter and mother of five. Blessed with a rich fantasy life, Gertrudis savors the beauty of the world around her, in silence and in solitude. With the arrival of an itinerant French photographer, her perceptions of herself begin to change. La Cámara Oscura is a hauntingly beautiful and contemplative depiction of Jewish immigrants who settled in the Pampas of Argentina in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Villa Clara, where the film is set, was founded in 1890 in Entre Riso Province, one of several agricultural colonies established by Maurice de Hirsch’s Jewish Colonization Association of Paris. The settlers – mainly Jewish immigrants fleeing Russian pogroms – came to be known as Jewish gauchos (cowboys).
Kaj Wilson

Veteran animator and documentary filmmaker Andrey Khrzhanovskiy’s feature debut is a lyrical masterpiece bursting with images from the life of Nobel prize-winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. Khrzhanovsky skillfully weaves a fictional account of an anonymous visit by an elder, exiled Brodsky to his native St. Petersburg with the story of his growing up an only child in the rapidly changing post-WWII era. Conjuring a cinematic alchemy of music, animation and drama, the director also makes a nod to literature, creating for Brodsky his own filmic version of Remembrance of Things Past. As a young man, Brodsky—living under the repressive Soviet regime— asserted that Russia would be free when Pravda published Proust in its pages. Rarely has the city of St. Petersburg been captured as beautifully as in this nostalgic paean to childhood and a Soviet Union enamored of its poets and writers. Redolent of Fellini and Tartovsky, this extraordinary film features talking, hand-drawn cats and, in a lovely moment, the animated flying exodus of musical instruments from the apartments of St. Petersburg’s Jews, who themselves are gravity bound to the streets ruled by Joseph Stalin.
Nancy K. Fishman

Frans Weisz spins a compelling tale of intertwined relationships amongst a multigenerational group of Dutch Jews whose family survived WWII. Simon, the patriarch, is gravely ill but his grip on life is unrelenting. His family and friends gather around to comfort him and to decide what to do in the event that he is no longer able to decide for himself. Mixing a serious look at the transgenerational effects of the Holocaust on each member of the family with their wishes and dreams— some of which they amusingly confess in explicit detail to the almost comatose Simon—the director creates an intimate portrait of Dutch Jewish life. This third part of the director’s epic trilogy (POLONAISE, 1989 and QUI VIVE, 2001) reveals children of survivors who are grappling with the mortality of their parents, smoldering desires for old lovers, and family secrets that continue to fester beneath the surface. The very existence of the second generation, from their quotidian struggles to their deepest aspirations, breathes life into Simon’s assertion that “One hour above ground is worth more than an eternity underneath it.”
Nancy K. Fishman

Ruth Gruber, 97, was an ace journalist, photographer and author for more than 70 years. Practically hurtling herself out of Brooklyn and into global politics, she witnessed some of the most critical junctures in contemporary world history and specifically Jewish history. As a high school student she fell in love with German culture and won a fellowship to study in Cologne, where she became the world’s youngest PhD at age 20. Drawn to journalism and undaunted by the news industry’s dominance by men, Gruber cultivated tenacity and an enormous capacity for empathy that permeated all of her interviews. Her news coverage and humanitarian spirit drew the eyes of the world to the Nuremberg trials, the plight of the ship Exodus ‘47, United Nations committee meetings in Palestine and the formation of the state of Israel. Not only did she report on history, she participated in it; in 1944, she was recruited by the Roosevelt administration to escort 1,000 Holocaust refugees from Naples to New York in a secret wartime mission. Gruber is enthralling and insightful in this exquisitely crafted documentary brimming with iconic archival footage.
Nancy K. Fishman

Queens, New York, 1969. On the day of her husband’s funeral, Pearl Berman (Shirley MacLaine) learns she has a secret Italian admirer (Marcello Mastroianni), who has loved her from afar for 23 years. As if the MacLaine-Mastroianni pairing weren’t enough, this touching 1992 comic gem about a middle-aged Jewish woman’s second chance at love features a powerhouse female supporting cast that includes Kathy Bates and Marcia Gay Harden as Pearl’s dysfunctional daughters; Jessica Tandy as her mother; and Sylvia Sidney as her Mom’s longtime sidekick. No actress plays difficult mothers better than Shirley MacLaine. Hard-shelled and sharp-tongued Pearl isn’t the stereotypical manipulative, smothering American Jewish mother who burdens her children with guilt over her endless sacrifices. Rather she’s more typical of a type who grew up during the Depression: an emotionally reserved, practical, often frustrated housewife who didn’t cater to and befriend her children the way today’s mothers do. Pearl joins MacLaine’s Aurora Greenway (Terms of Endearment, 1983) and Doris Mann (Postcards From the Edge, 1990) in the Tough Mother Hall of Fame.
Kaj Wilson

Yigal and Elena meet in a working-class suburb of Tel Aviv. He is a born and bred Israeli; she is a Russian immigrant. He is a taxi driver; she is a music teacher. He’s a divorced single-parent; she’s married. He has limited aspirations; she gave up hers long ago. He is afraid of flying; she is about to fly away. They both love French chansons. What are the odds of them ending up together? The film’s quiet charm, gentle rhythms, and the genuine chemistry between actors Dror Keren as Yael and Elena Yaralova as Elena make for an irresistible romance. Vladimir Friedman co-stars as Elena’s husband, a urologist who is longing to immigrate to Canada.

Presented at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival Festival and winner of the prize for best Israeli Full-Length Feature at the 2009 Haifa International Film Festival, Five Hours From Paris is an accomplished debut by director Leon Prudovsky, who was born in St. Petersburg and immigrated to Israel at age 13.
Kaj Wilson

If you’ve been searching for a film that combines love for the Torah with love for baseball, then look no further than this witty comedy about an upstart Orthodox baseball team. Heck, even if you hate sports, David and Zev Brooks’ feature film is a rollicking good time. The Brooks brothers debut film, featuring a wise rebbe and an evil college tournament chairman, offers a strong moral argument for diversity and tolerance both within the Jewish community and in the world of sports. When major league ball player Charlie Jones gets paroled (after being jailed for multiple drunk driving offences), the only volunteer coaching opportunity available to him is with an Orthodox yeshiva baseball team—the Yankles. Charlie, who was sentenced to 192 hours of community service, is initially not too keen on coaching the boys with side curls, but their team spirit and even a little of their religious spirit is contagious. His ex-wife helps him obtain the volunteer gig and as Charlie cleans up his act, there’s even hope for a second chance at love.
Nancy K. Fishman

Tova Klein is a Jewish lesbian who was born in Israel and moved to Brooklyn, where she was raised in an orthodox Jewish family. She fell in love with Travis Cloud and they adopted three children of color: Avery—who is African-American--and her two brothers, Rafi and Zay-Zay. As Avery enters adolescence, the typical search for identity that engages her peers takes on additional resonance because of her being a young black woman in a Jewish lesbian family. “Do you feel black?” a counselor asks Avery Klein-Cloud. She responds with simple honesty, “I don’t know what that means.” Avery is drawn to spending more time with her African-American friends and boyfriend, exploring a cultural milieu that is missing at home. When Avery tries to contact her birthmother, it creates emotional waves for all of her adoptive family. Her search for roots is a primordial need, even stronger than her calling as a talented young track athlete. Niocle Opper’s excellent documentary explores race, coming-of-age and the heartbreaking quest for self of a young African American woman raised in a progressive Jewish household.
Nancy K. Fishman

"What's in a name?/That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet." So says Juliet—in Yiddish!— in Eve Annenberg’s innovative, Shakespeare-infused drama about ex-Orthodox guys who lend their Yiddish skills to Ava, a budding Yiddish scholar. Twenty-year-old Brooklyn-born Laser is running petty scams for food and drugs with his pal Mendy. Alienated from their families and communities, they sport the thick accents of their ultra Orthodox Satmer sect, in which Yiddish is the first language. Ava, an emergency room nurse who is studying for a Masters in the mama loschen, loves Yiddishkeit but not the Orthodox. When she takes on the project of translating Romeo & Juliet into Yiddish, a Satmer ambulance driver recommends young toughs Laser and Mendy to assist her with the translation. But there is one small problem: they have never heard of Shakespeare. As they start to “modernize” and act in the archaic play, the young men fall under its rapturous spell. Annenberg’s utterly enchanting meditation on life and love in New York yields a rapprochement between Secular and Ultra-Orthodox worlds.
Nancy K. Fishman

Luisa is a French Jew living and studying in Jerusalem in 1991, under the threat of missile attacks from Iraq. Her handsome boyfriend Nathanael loses himself in his painting and his dark moods. Luisa’s best friend Tamar is pregnant and is concerned that her reporter husband Gil (Lior Ashkenazi) will be at the radio station when the missiles come. Tamar’s mother (Hanna Laslo) has an intuition about her daughter’s delivery date and drives from Haifa to Jerusalem wearing her gas mask. Adapted from Valérie Zenatti's 2006 novel, the characters include Luisa’s recently heartbroken boss Amos (Tzahi Grad); Nathanael’s Palestinian friend Hahj, who is trying to obtain a gas mask; and Luisa’s neighbor, Mrs. Finger-Mayer, a Holocaust survivor who is unsure of which war she’s living through. Alain Tasma’s omnibus drama resonates with the tension of the Iraqi rocket attacks on Israel. The missiles illuminate the sharp edges of the lives of each of these characters, thrusting into shadow the trivial concerns of daily life and bringing into sharp relief the essential bonds of family, friends and the will to survive.
Nancy K. Fishman

Only in German.

Dalia Mevorach and Dani Dothan are an Israeli documentary film industry power couple. They met in tel aviv night clubs of the 1980s where Dani was leading the punk/ new wave group Haklik (The Clique) and Dalia was video Documenting their tour of anger and pain. Since 2000 they co-own a film company Elil Communication. They produce and direct all their films together. As protagonists for there documentaries Dalia and Dani always chose intensely individual characters with a unique agenda.

Only in German.

Only in German.

Only in German.