Some Jewish Films and Videos



Ever Shot Anyone

TITLE:Ever Shot Anyone?
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: a documentary by Michal Aviad and Amit Goren
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew, English subtitles
TIME: 80
SOURCE: nfct@netvision.net.il

TEXT: As a child, the Israeli female filmmaker, Michal Aviad, used to ask her father "Have You Ever Shot Anyone" when he returned from reserve duty and army service. When her own 5 year old son asks for a birthday cake shaped like a battlefield with soldiers, and when he is always playing soldier or knight, she desires to learn more about and infiltrate the male bastion of Israeli reserve duty and the cult of army and soldier's affect upon Israeli culture. She decides to film and interview the members of a reserve company of 40 year old soldiers on the Syrian border for 32 days. When she entered the project, she expected to penetrate the machismo, thinking that late at night, during guard duty, the men would open up to her and talk of their intimate hopes and dreams. What she got was something different, which sometimes happens when doing documentaries. You never know what will happen when you don't have a script. Suffice it to say that this film becomes a rather humourous look at reserve duty, male bonding, individuality and the process of group-think, as well as the role of the army in bringing different types of people together in order to perform a specific task.

Embroidered Canticles

TITLE: Embroidered Canticles
YEAR: 1991
DIR/PROD: Izza Genini
COUNTRY: France
LANGUAGE: French, Arabic, and Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 26
SOURCE:
TEXT: Andalusian noubas / body and soul matruz songs in Hebrew and Arabic sung by Rabbi Haim Louk and Abdel-sadek Checkara.

Enemies, A love story

TITLE: Enemies, a love story
YEAR: 1989
DIR/PROD:
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 119
SOURCE: med
TEXT: Academy Award nominated film based on an I B Singer story about a Jew living in New York who can't decide between his lover and his newly arrived wife, whom he thought had perished in the Holocaust.

Every Time We Say Good-bye

TITLE: Every Time We Say Good-bye
YEAR: 1986
DIR/PROD:
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 97
SOURCE: Liv
TEXT: Tom Hanks as a WW II pilot stationed in Jerusalem who falls in love with a Sephardic girl from a prominent Jerusalem family.

The Fixer

TITLE: The Fixer
YEAR: 1968
DIR/PROD: John Frankenheimer
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 132
SOURCE: MGM video
TEXT: John Frankenheimer's film based on Bernard Malamud's story of a Jewish handyman jailed in 1911 Tsarist Russia after being accused of murdering a non-Jewish boy.

Escape

TITLE: Escape
YEAR: 1940
DIR/PROD:
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME:
SOURCE:
TEXT: an adaptation of Ethel Vance's best-sellin novel of Escape of Nazism. Shows concentration camps, but makes no mention of Jews.

Europa, Europa

TITLE: Europa, Europa
YEAR: 1992
DIR/PROD: Agnieszka Holland / Artur Brauner Margaret Menegoz
COUNTRY: German French co-production
LANGUAGE: Yiddish, Russian, Polish, and German w/ English subtitles
TIME: 115
SOURCE: Orion Home Video
TEXT: The true story of Simon Perel, a German-Jewish teenager who survived WW II by concealing his true identity. Through wick wits and language knowledge, he becomes a mascot and translator for a German unit, is adopted by a German officer, and is enrolled in a Nazi prep school.

Der Ewige Jude, The Eternal Jew

TITLE: Der Ewige Jude, The Eternal Jew
YEAR: 1940
DIR/PROD: Fritz Hippler / J. Goebbels
COUNTRY: Germany
LANGUAGE: English voiceover and English subtitles
TIME: 62
SOURCE: International Historic Films, or the NY Public Library
TEXT: A propoganda/documentary made under the direction of Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propoganda. Footage of the Lodz ghetto. Mission is to incite populations to help the Nazi's round up the Jews.

Exodus

TITLE: Exodus
YEAR: 1960, Video 1992
DIR/PROD: Otto Preminger
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 128
SOURCE: United Artists
TEXT: Based on the book by Leon Uris. Filmed in Israel. An epic drama of postwar Palestine, the founding of Israel, and the ship called Exodus, filled with Displaced Persons from the Britich detention camps of Cyprus.

The Frugal Gourmet - the Jewish mother

TITLE: The Frugal Gourmet - the Jewish mother
YEAR: 1984
DIR/PROD: WTTW/Chicago
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 60
SOURCE: PBS
TEXT: Jeff Smith, the groumet chef prepares matzo ball soup, carrot pudding and cheese cake.

Fiddler on the Roof

TITLE: Fiddler on the Roof
YEAR: 1971, video released in 1988
DIR/PROD: Norman Jewison
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 180
SOURCE: United Artists
TEXT: musical comedy based on the Broadway play

Great Dictator

TITLE: The Great Dictator
YEAR: 1940, restored 1968, video 1989
DIR/PROD: Charlie Chaplin
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 126
SOURCE: Key video
TEXT: A satirical comdey about Hitler and Naziism. Chaplin plays the role of a persecuted Jewish barber and of Adenoid Hynkel, the dictator of Tomania. The barber is mistaken for the dictator and he amazes the dictator's followers with an impassioned humanistic speech.

Eternal Light series

TITLE: Eternal Light
YEAR: varied
DIR/PROD: Jewish Theological Seminary on NBC-TV
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 30
SOURCE: Nat. Jewish Archive of Broadcasting/Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave, NY NY 10128, USA
TEXT: A variety of shows from 1962-80's. One of my favorites is Home For Passover (1966) with Gene Wilder and Boris Tumarin, depicting the efforts of a poor teacher and his assistant to reach home in time for Pesach.

Echo Soup

TITLE: Echo Soup
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Daniel Baer
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 13 minute video
SOURCE: 413 Capp Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 Tel: (415) 641-6107
TEXT: Interviews with people outside their religious or cultural mileau, such as the african American musician in a klezmer band, or a straight drummer in the gay band, Pansy Division.

Expulsion and Memory

TITLE: Expulsion and Memory
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Simcha Jacobovici and Roger Pyke
COUNTRY: Canada
LANGUAGE: English, Spanish, and Hebrew w/ English subs
TIME: 57 minute video
SOURCE: Associated Producers, 110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 1001, Toronto, Ontario, M5V2K4, CANADA Tel: 416-504-6662
TEXT: The story of the descendents of the Conversos, those who practiced their Judaism in secret during and after the Spanish Empire's Inquisition. Investigates those descendents in New Mexico, Spain, and Portugal.

Fictitious Marriage

TITLE: Fictitious Marriage
YEAR: 1988
DIR/PROD: Haim Bouzaglo
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 90
SOURCE:
TEXT: An Israeli teacher says good-bye to his family, and goes to Ben Gurion airport for a trip abroad. But he skips the flight, and checks in to a seedy Tel Aviv motel pretending to be a single Israeli living abroad who returns to Israel to visit his ill mother. He keeps the charade going with comic consequences, as an ElAl security officer, who discovers his luggage at the airport, investigates why he wasn't on the flight. As he continues his charade, he romances his hotel's clerk, who hopes he will wisk her away to America, and he pretends to be a mute Arab construction worker, which leads to a several sympathetic scenes on the plight of abused Arab workers

Family Business - American Playhouse

TITLE: Family Business - American Playhouse
YEAR: 1983
DIR/PROD: John Stix/Marilyn and Hal Weiner Productions for American Playhouse
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 84
SOURCE: Nat. Jewish Archive of Broadcasting/Jewish Museum, 1109 5th Ave, NY NY 10128, USA
TEXT: Milton Berle, Jeffrey Marcus and others star in this story of an upper middle class Jewish American family. Story focuses on the relationships between the aging father and his 4 sons.

Forbidden Marriages in the Holyland

TITLE: Forbidden Marriages in the Holyland
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Michel Khleifi
COUNTRY: UK/Palestinian/Beligium
LANGUAGE:
TIME: 66, video documentary
SOURCE: Sindibad Films: Nathalie Boutin, 5 Princes Gate, 2nd Floor, London, Sw7 1QJ, UK Tel: 011-44-171-823-7488 $250.
TEXT: Khleifi looks, sometimes humorously, at the mixed marriages of 8 couples; marriages between partners of different religious and ethnic groups in Israeli and Palestinian society, and the reactions of their families and children. He also interviews several clerics from the 3 montheistic religions.

Fragments of a Dream

TITLE: Fragments of a Dream
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Yakov Friedland
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew
TIME: 20
SOURCE: Maaleh School of Film, Jerusalem
TEXT: student film focusing on a family of West Bank settlers and the possbility of their future evacuation from the occupied territories. Received the Israel Film Institute's award for best actor in a short feature film.

Fanny and Alexander

TITLE: Fanny and Alexander
YEAR: 1982
DIR/PROD: Ingmar Bergman / Joern Donner
COUNTRY: Sweden
LANGUAGE: Swedish w/ English subs
TIME: 188
SOURCE:
TEXT: In this acclaimed film by Ingmar Bergman there is a subplot about Isak, a local Jewish merchant in turn of the century Uppsala Sweden, who is carrying on in an affair with the author's grandmother. Isak's house is a source of refuge from the austere and cold environment of the mother's second husband, who is a bishop.

Die Grube

TITLE: Die Grube
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Karl Fruchtman
COUNTRY: Germany
LANGUAGE: German
TIME: 90
SOURCE:
TEXT: A drama focusing on the fate of 90 children who survived the massacre of 900 Jews in Bjelaja Zerkow (near Kiev) in 1941.

Fast Trip, Long Drop

TITLE: Fast Trip, Long Drop
YEAR: 1993
DIR/PROD: Gregg Bordowitz / Sara Diamond
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 60?
SOURCE: Gregg Bordowitz, ??? West 26th Street, NY NY; or Drift Distribution, 611 Broadway, Suite 742, New York, NY 10012 or STRAND RELEASING, New York, WWW.STANDREL.COM
TEXT: Filmed to a klezmer score performed by The Klezmatics, this is an autobiographical documentary, mixed with scripted performances, yiddish film clips, and clips from Evel Knievel's attempted jump over the Grand Canyon. The film focuses on 29 year old Gregg Bordowitz's search for information on his father, who left Gregg at age four and was killed at age 30, and Gregg's life after he discovers that he has contracted AIDS in a drunken tryst. See also Gregg's 1996 video, "The Suicide."

Good and Bad - Black and White

TITLE: Good and Bad - Black and White
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: a documentary by Amit Goren
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew, English subtitles
TIME:
SOURCE:
TEXT: When refugees arrived in Israel in the 1950's from Iraq, Yemen, and Morocco, the government put them in tents and attempted to melt them into a dominant Israeli culture. Now, as immigrants arrive from the former Soviet States and from Ethiopia, the government places them into trailer parks, but does not try to say that their "old" ways are bad, they're just different. The immigrant experience is central to Israeli culture in the 20th Century, so it's interesting to watch this process proceed. It is into this environment that Amit Goren steers his camera. Over 2 years, he visited the trailer park of Hazor, with a population of 2,800 Ethiopian and ex-Soviet olim. He attempts to follow one Ukrainian and one Ethiopian family with moderate success (but sometimes the families just don't cooperate as you hope they would).... Goren is successful at showing how people in transition, people who leave their past behind and have uncertain futures, behave when they are thrown together and must recognize that reality will not always match their expectations. Unfortunately for the civil society, the film also shows that integration between the Ethiopians and Soviet immigrants does not occur even in this small town of 2800. It will be shown on German TV and probably Canadian TV in 1996.

My Jewish Grandfather

TITLE: My Jewish Grandfather
YEAR: 1993
DIR/PROD: Casper Hoyberg
COUNTRY: Denmark
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 55 video
SOURCE: Casper Hoyberg, Sankt Hans gade 8,4,tv , 2200 Copenhagen, Denmark, fax: (45) 31-39-65-11
TEXT: Casper Hoyberg, a young Danish filmmaker, travels to Lithuania and Israel, where he delicately unlocks the secrets of a once-silent history and in the process, forges deeper relationships with his grandmother and father.

The Garden of the Finzi Continis

TITLE: The Garden of the Finzi Continis
YEAR: 1971
DIR/PROD: Manuel De Sica
COUNTRY: Italy
LANGUAGE: Italian w/ English subtitles
TIME: 90
SOURCE: LHV, Sony Pictures Classics
TEXT: Manuel De Sica's 1971 Oscar winning Italian film chronicles a wealthy Jewish family in Ferrara Italy on the eve of World War II. Based on the 1962 novel by Giorgio Bassani. Stars the French actress Dominique Sanda as Micol, and the German actor Helmut Berger as Alberto. Rololo Valli plays Giogio's father. The film opens in 1938, as Mussolini's regime proclaims racial restrictions on Jews. When wealthy Jewish youths are banned from playing at the local tennis club, the wealthy and aloof Finzi-Continis invite them to play at their courts on the grounds of their vast estate. That's when middle class Giorgio falls in love with Micol Finzi-Continis. All, rich and poor, as deported to the death camps in 1943. The film's last image appears to be the wasted ground of a fenced-in concentration camp. Or is it actually the Finzi-Continis fogotten tennis court

Gentleman's Agreement

TITLE: Gentleman's Agreement
YEAR: 1947
DIR/PROD: Elia Kazan
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME:
SOURCE: Fox Video
TEXT: This film was personally supervised by Daryl Zanuck at 20th Century Fox. It was written by Moss Hart and directed by Elia Kazan. Jack Warner at Warner Brothers tried to stop it from being made. He said to Zanuck, "Why rock the boat?" Anyway, about the film, Gregory Peck plays a writer who is assigned to write a story about anti-Jewish prejudice for Smith Weekly, a fictitous magazine. He pretends to be a Jew and witnesses prejudice first-hand from friends, lovers, co-workers, hotels, and, yes, other Jews.

The Greenbergs of California

TITLE: The Greenbergs of California
YEAR: 1977
DIR/PROD: Mark Obenhaus, Zina Voynow
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 59, 16mm
SOURCE: Group W
TEXT: Part of Westinghouse's 'Six American Families' series, this film focuses on the attitudes of marriage of Jackie and Arne Greenberg, a middle class Jewish couple who have recently separated. Their 2 children discuss their feeling about living with their separated parents

Genghis Cohn

TITLE: Genghis Cohn
YEAR: 1993
DIR/PROD: Elijah Moshinsky / Ruth Galeb, BBC and A&E
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 100
SOURCE: A&E Home Video
TEXT: Based on a novel by Romain Gary, a Jewish comedian, who was shot a Dachau, returns to haunt his executioner and exact an ironic revenge.

Goodbye Columbus

TITLE: Goodbye Columbus
YEAR: 1969
DIR/PROD: Larry Peerce / Stanley R. jaffe
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 105
SOURCE: Paramount
TEXT: Based on the Philip Roth novel.

Generation Exodus

TITLE: Generation (Ex)odus
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Aaron Lubarsky and Michael Jaffe
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 34 minutes
SOURCE: Poett Productions, POB 605, San Mateo, CA 94401 (415) 375 8818
TEXT: An award winning documentary exploring the issues facing 'Generation X,' 20-something American Jews. Topics include: intermarriage, assimilation, stereotypes, Israel, detachment, and identity. Interviews are with all types of young Jews, from the Orthodox to the alienated to those who don't know the difference between kiddush and kaddish. Lubarsky and Jaffe are both Jewish, 20-somethings who met and created the idea for the film while working part-time at the landmarked Temple Emanu-El in San Francisco. This is an excellent film to use in order to provoke discussions.

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Der Golem

TITLE: Der Golem
YEAR: 1920
DIR/PROD: Paul Wegener amd Carl Boese
COUNTRY: Germany
LANGUAGE: Silent
TIME: 90 minutes in 16mm
SOURCE:
TEXT: The tale of Rabbi Loew and his Golem in medieval Praha. See also Le Golem, by Julien Duvivier (136, 117 minutes, in French), which focuses on who is the real Golem, the clay monster or the mindless Emperor.

The Flying Camel

TITLE: The Flying Camel
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: Rami Na'aman/Marek Rozenbaum
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 93
SOURCE: Transfax, Tel Aviv
TEXT: This comedy explores the friendship between a Jewish history professor who lives in a junkyard shack, and Phares, an Arab garbage collector who wants to replant his father's orange grove where the shack is located.




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