Limmud NY International Film Festival
“Look Me in the Eye”
Underlying Antisemitism
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
What do you get when you cross Borat with Brokaw? Documentary filmmaker, investigative journalist, and provocateur Naftaly Gliksberg. Join his shocking, dramatic, and often humorous international journey investigating persistent Jewish stereotypes in our world. Laugh, cringe, and gasp as Naftaly confronts West Virginian farmers, white supremacists, German punks, French comedians, African-American/Jewish families, Polish Catholics and Passion-goers, American evangelical pastors, and more.
My Mexican Shiva
Film,
Global History & Culture
A gentle comedy set in Polanco, a Jewish quarter of Mexico City, about how the death of a man results in the celebration of his life. Family and friends sit shivah for Moishe Szeleviansky, a much beloved patriarch, and suddenly all are forced to confront each other and the secrets of their past. Mourners include a Catholic ex-lover, an Orthodox ex-convict grandson, and a troupe of mariachi musicians. Two Yiddish-speaking spirits wryly observe the mourners while accounting for Moishe's soul. Musical score by The Klezmatics. Discount on DVD for Limmudniks: http://store.emergingpictures.com
“Eyes Wide Open”
Film,
Israel
How do you build your own relationship to Israel?
Veteran filmmaker Paula Weiman-Kelman spent more than a year following a wide spectrum of American Jews on their journeys to Israel. Once you visit Israel ... everything looks different.
BLOODLINES
Film,
Global History & Culture
Witness an extraordinary series of encounters between two women, Ruth Rich, the artistic and angry daughter of Holocaust survivors, and Bettina Goering, the thoughtful and haunted grand niece of Hermann Goering, Hitler’s deputy and the man in charge of the Nazi death camps. Both women have spent their lives carrying burdens from the Holocaust: Bettina feels guilt because of the evil for which Goering was responsible; Ruth feels grief and rage at the murder of so many of her relatives, including her little brother. Can they create "a partnership in suffering"? Is reconciliation and healing possible?
“In the Family”
Genetic Testing, Preventative Surgery, and Cancer
Advanced,
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
What are the consequences of knowing your risk for breast or ovarian cancer, and who are the women living with the risk? Filmmaker Joanna Rudnick tested positive for the familial breast cancer mutation (BRCA) and chronicled her journey as well as the lives of other women undergoing the process of genetic testing. We are in the first generation of women living with the knowledge that they are predisposed to a life-threatening disease. What are the psychological, legal, ethical, cultural and social complexities of genetic testing for a BRCA mutation? What are the effects on family? What are the quality-of-life sacrifices?
HALAKEH
Film,
Ritual & Prayer
This dramedy depicts a journey made by a young religious family in Israel. Yoni who once was a secular Jew, is now devoted to the passionately Hassidic Breslov tradition. His wife Yael has remained in a more moderate, mainstream branch of Judaism. Their son Yiftach's third birthday falls on the holiday of Lag Ba'omer, and Yoni wants to take Yiftach through a masculine rite of passage -- the halakeh ceremony, where a boy's hair is cut for the first time. The long journey to Mount Meron is filled with conflict, laughter, and tears.
“Jews” (BBC Miniseries)
Part I
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
Meet Samuel Leibovitz, a convicted drug dealer, after his release from prison, as he reenters the Hasidic world in which he grew up. With extraordinary access to the Hasidic community in Stamford Hill, the first episode of this BBC series gives an exceptionally rare insight into ultra-orthodox Jewish life in a closed Jewish community in North London.
“Rene and I”
Film,
Global History & Culture
Featured in this film is the gripping true story of Irene Hizme and her twin brother, Rene Slotkin, who were sent to Auschwitz at barely age six, among 3,000 twins subjected to Josef Mengele’s experiments in his quest to create a Master Aryan race. More than just a record of one of the Holocaust’s darkest chapters, the film is about love and courage, demons and saviors, the complexity of the human psyche, and how rare individuals are able to rise above inhumane circumstances with their emotional selves intact.
**Please note, this is a film and a DVD player will be used in this session.
“Blessed is the Match”
The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh
Film,
Global History & Culture
This documentary tells the amazing story of the poet, diarist, paratrooper, resistance fighter, and Jewish Joan of Arc, Hannah Senesh, and her mother, Catherine. In the final days of WWII, Hannah joined a unique rescue mission for Hungarian Jews. She parachuted behind enemy lines, and was captured by the Nazis. Incredibly, Catherine witnessed the entire ordeal—first as a prisoner with Hannah, and later as her advocate, in war-torn Budapest, as she tried to save her daughter from execution.
“Jews” (BBC Miniseries)
Part II
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
Episode two looks at the psychological inheritance of the Holocaust in modern Britian. The Holocaust may have taken place over half a century ago, but the children of refugees and survivors find themselves carrying the inherited trauma from the past in their everyday lives.
“Hiding and Seeking”
Faith and Tolerance After the Holocaust
Film,
Global History & Culture
This film is a thoughtful, emotional documentary about the lingering effects of the Holocaust, and differing religious and generational approaches. A progressive Jewish father tries to alert his more rigid adult sons to the dangers of creating impenetrable barriers between themselves and others. They travel to Poland to track down the Christian family who risked their lives hiding their grandfather for more than two years during WWII.
Comedy, Crisis, and Complaints
A Quirky, Fun Look at Assimilation and Attraction
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
We will show three short films, featuring discussion afterward with director of “My Nose.”
“The Tribe,” directed by Tiffany Shlain (5 min.): What does Barbie have to do with Jews?
“My Nose,” directed by Gayle Kirschenbaum (15 min.): What if your senior citizen mom pressures you, as an adult, into a nose job to improve your dating life?
“Unattached,” directed by JJ Adler (30 min.): The quest for the modern orthodox, Upper West Side shidduch (match) is unraveled.
“Mechina: A Preparation”
College/University Student Recommended,
Film
Maital feels no different from her cousin Amitai. They both enjoy music and going to the beach. They both want to work for peace. When they were eighteen, they both worried about graduating from high school and making plans for the future. The difference? At eighteen, Maital worried about what college she would attend, while Amitai worried about what unit he would enter in the Israeli Defense Force. Mechina: A Preparation reveals a side of Israel unseen in the media, a side that exposes the people beyond the conflict and beneath the uniform. In the summer of 2004, Maital launches a journey to discover what it means to be eighteen in Israel. Living with Amitai and his five friends as they prepare for their army service, she uncovers the complexity of being young and idealistic in a time of war, as the teens transition from students to soldiers.
“Shanghai Ghetto”
Film,
Global History & Culture
Learn about the Jewish refugees who escaped the Nazi Germany by going to Japanese-occupied Shanghai, China. Experience unique interviews with survivors and historians, letters and photos, as well as rare archival footage. What were the refugees' relationships with the Chinese and the occupying Japanese forces? How did American Jews react? What culture formed from these extreme hardships?
“The Forgotten Refugees”
Film,
Global History & Culture
Buried beneath the headlines of the Middle East conflict is the nearly forgotten story of the region’s indigenous Jewish communities. In 1945, up to one million Jews lived in the Middle East outside of the Palestine Mandate. Within a few years, only a few thousand remained. “The Forgotten Refugees” explores the history and destruction of Middle Eastern Jewish communities, some of which had existed for over 2,500 years.
“The Jews of Lebanon”
“La Petite Histoire Des Juifs Du Liban”
Film,
Global History & Culture
A documentary about the Jews of Lebanon could have been rather depressing—but this captivating film is anything but! It is full of quirky characters and attractive ladies who themselves are full of joie de vivre. Learn how the spirit of the Lebanese Jews lives on wherever they have rebuilt their lives—in Mexico, Canada, France, Brazil, Israel, Italy, America. This film took one year to make, and features interviews with 300 people in 10 different countries.
“Jews” (BBC Miniseries)
Part III
Film,
Identity & Responsibility
The final programme is set in the uncharted world of the Modern Orthodox Jewish community in Hendon in north-west London. The subject of the film is the 52-year-old millionaire philanthropist and aptly-named Jonathan Faith, former owner of high street chain Faith shoes. The Faiths have given themselves over to the task of guiding secular Jews toward living a more religious life.
