films
Film
All I've Got
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 4:30 p.m.
Synopsis
When 72-year-old Tamara passes on, she finds herself on a ship heading across river to the afterlife. There she meets Uri, her first love, who died at age 22, and is offered a momentous choice. She can begin her life again with him as a 22-year-old, but will have to give up all memories of her subsequent existence. Or she can stay as she is, at age 72, with the memories of her life with her husband and children intact. A “Ghost” for the new millennium, All I've Got is a moving drama about the road not taken and what might have been.
Film
The Orthodox Way
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 4:30 p.m.
Synopsis
Eli, a single religious guy, is forced to go out on a blind date. He picks up the wrong girl, and the two of them spend a bizarre evening driving around the streets of Jerusalem. A romantic comedy about dating the Orthodox way.
Film
Beau Jest
Showing
Saturday, November 7 at 9:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 at 12:00 p.m.
Synopsis
Playwright James Sherman’s popular tale about relationships, romance and intrigue moves from stage to screen, starring Robyn Cohen, Lainie Kazan, Seymour Cassel and Willie Garson (Stanford in “Sex in the City”). In this romantic comedy, Sarah Goldman, a young school teacher, is dating Chris Cringle, a great guy with just one apparent flaw – he’s not Jewish. So Sarah invents the perfect boyfriend and delights her parents with stories about the man of her mother’s dreams. When her parents insist on meeting this nice Jewish surgeon, Sarah resorts to desperate measures. Enter Bob, an actor, to play the role of her new beau. The antics that follow are what have made this comical, heartwarming tale such a huge success since its first stage production in 1989.
Film
Blessed is the Match: The Life & Death of Hannah Senesh
Showing
Saturday, November 7 at 7:00 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 at 4:15 p.m.
Synopsis
This film is the first-ever documentary feature on the World War II-era poet and diarist who became a paratrooper, resistance fighter and modern-day Jewish Joan of Arc.
Though safe in Palestine in 1944, Hannah volunteered for a mission to rescue Jews in her native Hungary. Shockingly, it was the only military rescue mission for Jews during the Holocaust. Hannah parachuted behind enemy lines, was captured, tortured and ultimately executed by the Nazis. Incredibly, her mother Catherine witnessed the entire ordeal – first as a prisoner with Hannah and later as her advocate, braving the bombed-out streets of Budapest in a desperate attempt to save her daughter.
Film
The Debt
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 2:00 p.m.
Synopsis
This is a nail-biting drama with a seemingly plausible premise. Mossad agents capture a Mengele-like Nazi physician, intending to return him to Israel for trial. He escapes. To cover their bungling, they concoct a story that they had killed him. Thirty years later, the Nazi re-emerges, and the former agents, now acting on their own, set out to find him and finish the job. Never formulaic, this thriller is suspenseful throughout.
Film
Down Home: Jewish Life in North Carolina
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 11:30 a.m.
Synopsis
Jews have been integral to North Carolina’s emergence as a progressive New South society. The documentary consists of interviews, suggestive re-enactment and narration – an interweaving of carefully-selected stories and storytellers, locations, and celebrations.
The story of Jews in this state is the story of North Carolina itself. Jewish energy in search of opportunity and advancement entered an initially very rural and substantially impoverished region. But North Carolina emerged as the leading New South state in its industry and its often progressive leadership, and Tar Heel Jews have genuinely contributed to that growth and change. The Jewish presence has made itself felt in small towns and growing cities, encouraging ties with centers elsewhere in the country and abroad, helping to bring NC into the wider world.
Making a successful new life in this welcoming state, Jews have found sanction to preserve their multicultural identities, and have responded in kind with significant contributions to economy, education, culture, and health care. This shared journey is the heart of our story.
Film
Gloomy Sunday
Showing
Saturday, November 7 at 7:15 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 at 2:15 p.m.
Synopsis
Set in pre-World War II Budapest, this magnificent, award-winning German film fills the screen with rich textures, indelible characters and a song that has haunted listeners for more than half a century.
First and foremost this is a love story, a ménage a trois that becomes increasingly complicated as time passes. It’s also built around the title song, a haunting ballad which was a hit during the 1930s, and later recorded and popularized by Billie Holiday in 1941. Finally, it is an eloquent story of war and its aftermath, right up to a stunning twist at the end. Lush cinematography, magnificent score, superb acting and a compelling story make this an unforgettable cinematic experience.
This movie contains mature subject matter, brief nudity and sexuality.
Film
Max Minsky and Me
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 4:45 p.m.
Synopsis
Nelly is a highly intelligent and no-nonsense girl. Her only friends are her books. She idolizes the prince of Luxembourg, who shares her passion for outer space. At the news that her school basketball team is going to compete in Luxembourg, she drops her books and jumps on the basketball training ground. Ten-year old Max Minsky offers her a deal: she does his homework, he teaches her to play basketball.
The trouble is that she is turning 13 and she is Jewish; she has to prepare for her bat mitzvah. Will she follow her heart or mind? Will she find her prince? Adapted from the best-selling novel by Holly-Jane Rahlens.
Film
Praying with Lior
Showing
Saturday, November 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, November 8 at 11:45 p.m.
Synopsis
This tender documentary focuses on the profoundly special relationship Lior Liebling, a boy with Down syndrome, has with prayer and God. While some consider Lior, also known as “the little rebbe,” to be a spiritual genius because of his fervent desire and enthusiasm for prayer, the camera also captures the incomparable impact Lior has on his family, friends and religious community
Lior is a high-functioning child whose humor, wit and passion for life inspire those around him. Still, he faces many roadblocks. The spirit of his mother, Rabbi Devorah Bartnoff Liebling, who died from breast cancer when he was only six, is a constant comfort to him. Filmmaker Ilana Trachtman presents an intimate, emotionally charged portrait of Lior and his family as they prepare for Lior’s greatest achievement to date – his bar mitzvah.
Film
Rabbi Firer: A Reason to Question
Showing
Sunday, November 8 at 1:45 p.m.
Synopsis
Hippocrates cautioned that, “The sick must battle both their illness and their doctors.” That maxim can still hold true, with medicine emerging as a sometimes incomprehensible series of specialists and doctors, options and opinions, experimental drugs and high-tech medical equipment.
Each day, some 150 patients seek an unbiased second opinion from an unusual rabbi, self-educated in medicine. He can change the way his patients are treated with a single phone call, often to world renowned expert. Rabbi Elimelech Firer, a 54-year-old Orthodox Jew, has been advising in medicine for the past 30 years on a voluntary basis. With dogged determination, up-to-date knowledge and unique diagnostic abilities, he challenges doctors to think again - about the well-being of the patient. Admired by some doctors and criticized by others, is the rabbi an emissary of good will and disinterested kindness, or does he wield too much influence that spawns dangerous preferences within the medical system?
Film
Waves of Freedom
Showing
Thursday, November 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the RTP Hilton. Opening Reception featured speaker Dr. Alan Rosenthal.
Synopsis
In one of the least known, but most dramatic stories of Americans’ support of Israel, 27 returning U.S. veterans are recruited to rescue 2,000 displaced Jews from post-war Europe and break the British blockade of Jewish Palestine. Undaunted by warnings that they could be hanged if the British Navy catches them, they sail a rust-bucket ship across the Atlantic to pick up their precious human cargo. En route to Palestine, they are captured by British destroyers, but manage to bring their passengers to Israel.
They return to the USA not as heroes, but as subjects of an FBI investigation.