films
Film
Doubletime
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Synopsis
Fly high with Chapel Hill’s airborne double dutch jump roping team, as they angle for the top prize in competition at Harlem’s Apollo Theater. Erica Zenn studies rigorously for her bat mitzvah at the Chapel Hill Kehillah, but her heart soars when she performs, guided by the gentle strength of Coach Ray Frederick. Director Stephanie Jones follows the fortunes of the Bouncing Bulldogs, and one of their chief rivals, the Double Dutch Forces from Columbia SC. Chapel Hill’s relative affluence is contrasted with the tougher circumstances of the Columbia team, although Coach Frederick feels that privilege can also be a hardship when it comes to character building. Sponsored by the Southern Documentary Fund, Doubletime looks forward to a future theatrical release by Discovery Films.
Film
Down Home
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Synopsis
Jewish Life in North Carolina opens a window on the richly diverse lives of North Carolina’s Jews. It has been designed to be a broadcast film and educational resource to preserve and share Jewish stories with many viewers and be available for years to come in schools, libraries, and historical, cultural and religious organizations statewide and nationally. Eli N. Evans says” as a work in progress, this film will be exciting, I think, for the Jewish community in the Triangle to see how it is shaping up as a story of not only what the Jews have contributed to the history of North Carolina but also what North Carolina and America and the South have given back to the Jews.”
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Durham: A Self Portrait
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Synopsis
Durham: A Self-Portrait is a documentary film and educational media project about the history of one of America’s unique cities. The film focuses on moments of transformation—from the birth of the tobacco, textile and African-American insurance and banking industries that defined the town for a century, through their demise and the long struggle to re-invent a 21st. century city. The story of Durham mirrors the story of America, and captures the vibrant music, culture and bare knuckles politics that have made the Bull City distinctive. More than 60 individuals were interviewed for the film to represent a broad span of generations and backgrounds. Eli N. Evans says ” the film is a revelation, even for someone like me who lived the story on the screen through my boyhood because my father served as Mayor through one of the really turbulent eras in the South’s history. Being a Jewish mayor in the South was unique at that time and this film takes the viewer inside the experience showing the way the city triumphed over the forces of racism that engulfed so many other cities and towns across the South that did not have the leadership in the black and white communities that blessed Durham.”
Film
Family Law
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Synopsis
Perleman, Sr., an affable Buenos Aires lawyer, is a schmoozer, relishing his café hours and bantering with his long established clients. His son, uptight Perelman Jr., correctly surmises that even though there is room on the sign, and it is his father’s dearest wish, there is no room in the office for another attorney named Perelman. Once the younger Perelman begins to appreciate his father’s qualities, which includes devotion to his long time secretary, he's freed from his father’s shadow. Director Daniel Burman is often described as an Argentine Woody Allen, and this film was the country’s Oscar submission last year. “It's a visually puckish, tragicomic celebration of an unassuming man's unsung goodness, which broadens, like Argentine filmmaker Daniel Burman's other movies, into a meditation on secular-Jewish identity in a less-than-tolerant society”--Village Voice
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Knowledge is the Beginning
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A combined Israeli-Middle Eastern Orchestra, led by international superstar musician and conductor Daniel Barenboim and mentored by him and the late Palestinian intellectual and Columbia University professor Edward Said, forges pathways for peace through a shared loved of music. A swelling symphony becomes a subversive force, as young musicians aged 14-25 from Israel (both Jewish and Palestinian) Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia and Lebanon reduce their level of hatred to zero as they share a passionate love of music and communicate on a personal level through their shared gifts. Barenboim and Said see musicians as citizens of the world, uniquely suited to plea for a reconciliation of the spirit. Said felt the West Eastern Divan Orchestra was one of his most important legacies, “Ignorance is not a strategy for sustainable survival.” Winner of 2006 International Prime Time Emmy for Arts Programming.
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Making Trouble
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Synopsis
Jews and comedy have always been inseparable, as humor is a potent weapon for underdogs, like recent immigrants, to find acceptance in mainstream culture. Profiles of six great female Jewish comedians, path breaking Fanny Brice and Sophie Tucker from the vaudeville era, spritely Molly Picon from the Yiddish theater, stand up comedian Joan Rivers, who speaks eloquently about forging pathways in the 1960s on the Johnny Carson and Ed Sullivan shows, Saturday Night Live’s Gilda Radner and playwright Wendy Wasserstein provide historical (hysterical) context. Modern day stand ups Judy Gold, Cory Kahaney, Jackie Hoffman and Jessica Kirson compare notes over an irresistible looking Katz’s Delicatessen lunch on New York’s Lower East Side, analyzing the influences and legacies of these funny foremothers. “The witty foursome’s repartee crackles with jokes and their sheer delight with the comic acumen of their predecessors. Fasten your seatbelt and hold onto your ribs!” --SJFF program notes. Produced by the Jewish Women’s Archive.
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Sixty Six
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Synopsis
Benny Reuben (Gregg Sulkin) an adorably dorky boy in 1960s London, fantasizes incessantly about his glorious future bar mitzvah. His fussy grocer father is about to be squeezed out of business by a super market, so money is tight, and carefully considered plans must be sacrificed. One agonizing disappointment after another culminates in the ultimate disaster, his immovable date coincides with the hotly anticipated World Cup Soccer Finals. Benny develops a sudden interest in the sport, hoping England will lose and his guest list won’t be savaged by guests who would prefer watching the final match to attending his ceremony. Director Paul Weiland, and his crackerjack cast, share the “true-ish” story of his own much anticipated bar mitzvah. Was any mother ever as glamorous as Helena Bonham Carter? Stay through the ending credits and see for yourself. Rated PG-13.
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Someone to Run With
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A fanatically loyal Labrador retriever named Dinka is the only clue in the disappearance of Tamar (Bar Belfer) a 16 year old girl. Assaf, (Yonatan Bar-Or) languishing in his boring summer job at Animal Control is given the stray dog by his employer, assigned to follow the dog as it returns to its master, so he can issue a citation. The devoted Dinka tracks this lost girl, perhaps not as lost as she first appears, and the film’s fractured time line contribute to a pulse pounding mystery, swiftly traveling across Jerusalem and into the city’s underworld at the end of a dog’s leash. A talented street musician, Tamar becomes enmeshed in the spider web of the repellent mastermind, Pseach, pretending to care for his cadre of homeless children, but brutally exploiting them. This reimagining of Oliver Twist and the character of Fagin, one of the most anti-Semitic characters in literature, takes place in the nooks and crannies of modern day Jerusalem. Filmed on location in a city that sees little film production, with a largely non-professional cast, Someone to Run with is based on the best selling novel by David Grossman. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Miami International Film Festival, it was also the first Israeli film ever to open the Jerusalem Film Festival. Viewers guide: graphic drug use, language and mature themes.
Film
Souvenirs
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Synopsis
The British Army in Palestine reluctantly created a Jewish Brigade to fight during World War II. After much hemming and hawing on the part of their commanders, the soldiers arrived in Europe towards the end of the conflict. The Brigade’s unusual good looks attracted the newly liberated ladies of the Netherlands, who wished to show their appreciation to the troops. A Yemenite father and son, one a grumpy 82 year old Jewish Brigade veteran and the other a wildly dreadlocked unemployed filmmaker, retrace the Brigade’s steps, triggering memories and searching for (possibly biological) souvenirs. Odd and funny, and unexpectedly heartwarming as father and son forge new closeness during their European road trip, the documentary Souvenirs won Audience Awards at the last Tribeca and Silver Docs Film Festivals.
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Starting Out in the Evening
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Synopsis
Heather (Lauren Ambrose) a comely Brown MA candidate on the make, targets 70 year old Leonard Schiller (Frank Langella) for her fawning admiration. He’s literary lion and supposed contemporary of Phillip Roth and Saul Bellow, whose novels languish out of print, and she hopes her thesis can resurrect his career. Reluctantly vulnerable to her insinuating charms, the aging author cracks open his notes, his memories and finally his heart. Frank Langella delivers a powerhouse performance of coiled strength and touching vulnerability. Lili Taylor as his unsettled daughter and Six Feet Under’s Emmy nominated Ambrose as the devious Heather co-star. “…this wise, observant, and exquisitely tacit chamber piece complicates every May-December, academic-novel cliché in the book.” Ella Taylor, Village Voice. "Starting Out in the Evening is a film about people who think literature is worth devoting a lifetime to. People who think great novelists are a species of saint. It honors values that seem obsolete in our trashy popular culture” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times. PG-13 for language and sexual situations.
Film
Sweet Mud
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On a gloomy kibbutz of thirty years ago, Dvir, a grave 12 year old boy (Tomer Steinhof) watches his mother’s tenuous mental health slip away under the petty tyrannies of committee rule. Sweet Mud is a disturbing indictment of an idealistic dream’s dissolution in midst of a socialist paradise in the Promised Land. The director, reflecting on his own childhood says, “My film confronts the collective memory of the kibbutz, as a habitat to picturesque landscapes and nature’s magical scents, with my own private memories in which people are people, regardless of the ideology they choose to wear…my aim was to make a film about the longing for warmth and emotions, a longing for the illusion that we are not alone.” Sweet Mud won the Sundance 2007 Dramatic World Cinema Jury Award, the Berlinale 2007 Crystal Bear for Best Feature Film, Israeli Academy Best Film Award 2006 and was Israel’s official submission for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award. Viewer’s Guide: mature themes, language, sex.