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Eugene
TITLE: Eugene
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Rebecca Schorsh and Rebecca Michelman
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 50 minutes
SOURCE: Jewish Theological Seminary Radio and TV Department
TEXT: A documentary focusing on 17 year old Eugene Chernyakovsky, who was born in Kiev in 1978. Eugene, who cannot speak or walk due to cerebral palsy, came to the United States in 1979 with his parents, and settled in Phaladelphia. Eugene, who attends a school for children with cerebral palsy, expressed a desire to become in bar mitzvah in 1990. His parents had no Jewish education in the former Soviet Union, and were not affiliated with the Jewish community in Philadelphia. The film focuses on his preparation for the bar mitzvah ceremony, and his left-foot-operated, customized computer system which allows him to speak Hebrew, English, and Russian.
At Home on the Range: Jewish Life in Texas
TITLE: At Home on the Range: Jewish Life in Texas
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Brian Cohen
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: minutes
SOURCE: Apple West Productions, bcohen@applewest.com 327 East 88th St., Suite 15 New York, NY 10128
TEXT: An exploration of the small Jewish communities in rural Texas, their early settlers, and their achievements and adversities. Broadcast date was Fall 1996 on PBS-TV
Trees Cry For Rain: A Sephardic Journey
TITLE: Trees Cry For Rain: A Sephardic Journey
YEAR: 1989
DIR/PROD: Bonni Burt
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English with Ladino
TIME: 32 minutes
SOURCE: Bonnie Burt Productions, 2600 Tenth Street, Berkeley, CA 94710, (510) 548-1745
TEXT: A look at the Sephardic Jews from Turkey, their songs, language and culture through the experiences of the family of Rachel Amado Bortnick, who came to the U.S. from Izmir Turkey.
Yidishe Gauchos - The Jewish Gauchos
TITLE: Yidishe Gauchos - The Jewish Gauchos
YEAR: 1989
DIR/PROD: Mark Freeman
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: ? minutes
SOURCE: ?
TEXT: Using interviews, old footage, and oral history, Mark Freeman documents the Eastern European Jews who settled in Argentina and became gauchos and merchants in agricultural communities, most notably: Basavilbaso and Moises Ville
As If It Were Yesterday
TITLE: As If It Were yesterday
YEAR: 1980
DIR/PROD: Myriam Abromowicz and Esther Hoffenberg
COUNTRY: France/ USA
LANGUAGE: French w/ English subtitles
TIME: 86 minutes
SOURCE: National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis University, Lown Bldg, 102, Waltham, MA 02254 USA, (617) 899-7044. NCJF@logos.cc.brandeis.edu
TEXT: This spirit-affirming documentary focuses on the secret networks of women in Belgium who hid Jewish children during World War II. Through a series of interviews, the viewer discovers how the project developed as a series of isolated acts of heroism into an organized network.
Avanti Popolo (Forward Comrades)
TITLE: Avanti Popolo
YEAR: 1986
DIR/PROD: Rafi Bukaee
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew and Arabic w/ English subtitles
TIME: 84 minutes
SOURCE: Ofer Ben Aharon, 27 East 31st Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10016 USA (212) 481-7015
TEXT: When this was released in 1986 (after the 1982 Israeli War in Lebanon) it caused a controversy in some circles. The story is of the destruction and foolishness of war. Based on a true story, two Egyptian soldiers get stranded in the Sinai Desert during the 1967 June 1967 Six Day War. One is a Shakespearean actor who was drafted into the army. As the pair amble across the desert in search of the canal, thirsty and delirious, they comically (and satirically) encounter an Israeli army patrol, a UN vehicle, and a news reporter.
Because of that War
TITLE: Because of that War
YEAR: 1988
DIR/PROD: Orna Ben Dor Niv
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 93 minutes
SOURCE: Orna Ben Dor Niv, 5 Pasteur Street, Yafo 68036, Israel, (972) 3-683-1108
TEXT: Yehuda Poliker and Yaakov Gilad are among Israel's top rock musicians. In the mid-1980's the two artists collaborated on the album, Ashes and Dust, which was dedicated the Holocaust's affect on their parents as well as on them -- the children of survivors. This quickly shot documentary mixes the album's songs with interviews with the musicians and their parents, who include Greek/Salonikan Jews.
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Birth of the Community: Jews and the Gold Rush
TITLE: Birth of the Community: Jews and the Gold Rush
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: Bill Chayes
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 42 minutes, video
SOURCE: Judah Magens Museum, San Francisco, CA
TEXT: Levi Strauss wasn't the only Jew to traipse to Northern California as one of the forty-niners (1849'er that is). This video explores the many other Jews who walked, rode, and sailed to California to seek their fortune duing the California Gold Rush.
Black to the Promised Land
TITLE: Black to the Promised Land
YEAR: 1991
DIR/PROD: Madeleine Ali
COUNTRY: USA/Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 75 minutes
SOURCE: Icarus Films, 153 Waverly Place, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10014, USA (212) 727-1711
TEXT: In 1991, a Jewish high school teacher took a class of African American students from Brooklyn's infamously poor Bed-Stuy neighborhood to an Israeli kibbutz for 10 weeks. While the teens are introduced to the good and bad sides of close-knit kibbutz society, the kibbutzniks are introduced to urban teens that they have only known from tabloid television news stories.
Brighton Beach
TITLE: Brighton Beach
YEAR: 1980
DIR/PROD: Carol Stein and Susan Wittenberg
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 55 minutes
SOURCE: Arthur Cantor, Inc., 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, (212) 391-2650
TEXT: Documentray focuses on the history, gorgeous mosaic, and current state of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach (Little Odessa), an enclave of Russian Jews since the turn of the century.
Vilna / and My Name is Stella
TITLE: Vilna
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Wolf Krakowski
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: minutes
SOURCE: http://www.kamea.com
TEXT: Wolf Krakowski, a video maker for the (Spielberg) Surviviors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, has directed these two videos. Vilna is a docuntary/music video. My Name is Stella is an oral history of a Polish-born Jewish woman who was a nursing student in the Warsaw Ghetto and who later worked in an S.S. Officer's compound using false papers.
The Miniskirted Dynamo
TITLE: The Mini Skirted Dynamo
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Rivka Hartman
COUNTRY: Australia
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 55 minutes
SOURCE: Hartman Production, Sydney, Australia
TEXT: Pathologist Dora Bialestock, who died in 1975, was a Jewish immigrant to Australia from Poland, and became Australia's celebrated pioneer for child care and child welfare. Yet in this very intimate (mommie-dearest) portrait, produced and directed by her daughter, Rivka Hartman, we see another side of Dora. According to Hartman, using home movies and interviews, her crusading mother had very poor parenting skills. The film received a 1996 Golden Augie Award
The Righteous Enemy
TITLE: The Righteous Enemy
YEAR: 1987
DIR/PROD: Joseph Rochlitz
COUNTRY: Italy
LANGUAGE: Italian and French w/ English subtitles
TIME: 84 minutes in 16mm and vhs video
SOURCE: National Center for Jewish Film
TEXT: A documentary focused on Italian soldiers and senior diplomats in Italy who saved the lives of 40,000 Italian Jews during World War II, refusing to collaborate with fascists in Italy, France, Greece, and Croatia. Includes an interview with the feamed Nazi hunter, Serge Klarfeld, who was saved by Italians.
The Substance of Fire
TITLE: The Substance of Fire
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Daniel Sullivan / Jon Robin Baitz
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 101 Minutes
SOURCE: Miramax International
TEXT: Based on Jon Robin Baitz's play of the same name, this Miramax pic stars Ron Rifkin, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tony Goldwyn, and Timothy Hutton. (Unfortunately, the film version of the play downplays the Holocaust's affect on the father's personality traits, as well as the stress that exists in the children of survivors.) The film opens with a shot of Hitlerite book burnings. Fast forward 50 years and we see actor Ron Rifkin as Isaac Geldhart, an unpleasant father of three, who cares more about his books than his grown children. A publisher, his company is bleeding money, yet he wants to publish a 5,000 page tome on Nazi atrocities. His son, Aaron, thinks that he can save the company by publishing his boyfriend's first novel. Isaac is disgusted by the idea, so Aaron's brother and sister (Sarah and Martin) sign their shares over to Aaron, giving him majority power in the company. Isaac retaliates by starting his own imprint. Aaron's imprint succeeds while Isaac's languishes. Isaac's failures lead to unstable antics, and the children must decide how to handle or care for a father that they have never truly loved.
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The Troupe
TITLE: The Troupe
YEAR: 1978?
DIR/PROD: Avi Nesher / Isaac Kol
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subs
TIME: 110 Minutes
SOURCE: Eastway Productions or try Sifrutake.com
TEXT: This was a very popular Israeli comedy (in Israel) made by director Avi Nesher at the age of 23. It focuses on the slapstick antics of an Israeli Army entertainment troupe, following it as it buses around the country to various military bases to sing songs. It's kind of like 'A Chorus Line' in an army bus: there's the pretty one, the funny one, the sexy one, etc. Many people may think the music has that 70's "Hair-like" sound, but hey, sue me, I like it. It supposedly takes place during those heady days of 1968. Notable actors include Gidi Gov and Gali Atari. But foremost among the stars is one song, which became popular again after the murder of PM Rabin, namely "Shir La Shalom - The Song of Peace" which was written by Yair Rosenbloom (who died in 1996) and Yaacov Rotbilt, and is performed at the end of the movie, driving home the post-73 war message that when you die, even as a hero, you're dead.
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Infinity
TITLE: Infinity
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Matthew Broderick / Joel Soisson, Don Phillips, et.al.
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 119 Minutes
SOURCE: First Look Pictures
TEXT: Actor Matthew Broderick directs, produces, and stars in this two hour flick (written by his mother) based on the early life of the famed Jewish-American, 1965 Nobel Prize winning scientist Richard Feynman, author of "Surely You're Joking, Mister Feynman" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think." The screenplay focuses on the years 1934-45: when Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project, and courted and married Arline Greenbaum.
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The Party Favor
TITLE: The Party Favor
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: Lisa Udelson
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 20 Minutes, 35 mm
SOURCE: Cimmaron Productions, 6824 Melrose, Suite 111, Los Angles, CA, 90038, (213) 936-6162
TEXT: A young lesbian couple arrive at the home of one their mother's to attend the wedding shower of a sister. While many of the other Jewish women attending the party get down to playing very hokey shower games and opening gifts, the couple is in search of a gift for themselves........ Touching and humorous... Starring David Schwimmer (who plays "Ross" on NBC-TV Friend's) and Anita Barone (who plays "Carol, Ross's ex-wife on NBC-TV Friends). Viewed at Sundance 1995. One day to be a full length feature film.
Chicks in White Satin
TITLE: Chicks in White Satin
YEAR: 1993
DIR/PROD: Elaine Holliman
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 20 Minutes, 16mm
SOURCE: Elaine Holliman, 2247 28th Street, Apartment A, Santa Monica, CA 90405, (310) 396-5890
TEXT: A documentary following two lesbian women as they register for wedding gifts, deal with parents, and meet with a rabbi to plan their wedding. Nominated for a 1994 Academy Award.
Cancer in Two Voices
TITLE: Cancer in Two Voices
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: Lucy Massie Phenix
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 43 Minutes, 16mm or vhs
SOURCE: Women Make Movies, 462 Broadway, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10013 (212) 925-0606
TEXT: An emotionally blunt documentary following two Jewish women, as one of them, Barbara Rosenblum, and fights breast cancer for three years, beginning in 1985.
Emigration, NY
TITLE: Emigration, NY
YEAR: 1994-5
DIR/PROD: Egon Humer
COUNTRY: Austria
LANGUAGE: German and English with English subtitles
TIME:
SOURCE: EgonHumer@blackbox.at OR Egon Humer Production Office, Backenbrunnlgasse 3, 1180 Vienna, Austria, Tel/fax: (43) 1478-7589, Email: 101475,706@compuserve.com
TEXT: Egon Humer is an Austrian filmmaker who has focused his documentaries on cancer wards, rest homes, former National Socialists, and death camps (namely Hartheim Castle and Loiblpass / Mauthausen). This two part documentary which was screened in New York City in Fall, 1996 looks at Austrian Jews that emigrated to New York City in 1938. About 30,000 Austrian Jews fled to the United States between March 1938 - November 1941. Egon Humer visits and interviews twelve of them -- 7 women and 5 men. Topics include their fear after the Anschluss, their loss of property and status, their attempts to escape, emigration, new language and adolescence, and their post-War visits to Austria. New York City
Chronicle of a Disappearance
TITLE: Chronicle of a Disappearance
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Elia Suleiman
COUNTRY: Israel and Palestine Authority (open to controversy)
LANGUAGE: Arabic w/ English Subtitles
TIME: 88 minutes
SOURCE: Dhat Productions, OR International Film Circuit, Inc., 54 West 21st St. #903, New York, NY 10010, (212) 691-0770 Fax: (212) 691-6812 Email: ifcplanet@aol.com
TEXT: Elia Suleiman, an Israeli born Palestinian in his 30's, plays himself as a filmmaker who returns to Jerusalem and Nazareth from NYC and takes a humorous look at the Palestinian middle class, who he feels have lost their identity. It is a collection of comic and serious vignettes (kind of like "Stranger Than a Paradise" without the Screaming Jay Hawkins soundtrack) looking at things like a woman's search for an apartment in East and then in West Jerusalem (Jews won't rent to her), French journalists at a hotel bar, vacationers fishing on the Kineret/Galilee, Palestinian souvenir retailers "creating" holy water for sale to Japanese tourists, a postcard rack revolving in the silent wind of Nazareth, Suleiman's actual parents at leisure, and his parents asleep late at night in front of their living room television as it signs off for the evening, playing Hatikva and broadcasting the Israeli flag flying in the wind. The second part of this film is a political statement, in which the female lead, Adan, attempts to confuse the Israeli police, and in an apparent homage to the Israeli song "Moshiach Lo Ba, Moshiach Gam Lo M'Talfon", she tells the police via their walkie talkies that "Oslo is not coming, Oslo's not even gonna' telephone."
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Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising According to Marek Edelman
TITLE: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising According to Marek Edelman
YEAR: 1993
DIR/PROD: Jolanta Dylewska
COUNTRY: Poland
LANGUAGE: Polish w/ English subtitles
TIME: 72 minutes, black and white
SOURCE: National Center for Jewish Film, Brandeis University, Lown Bldg, 102, Waltham, MA 02254 USA, (617) 899-7044. NCJF@logos.cc.brandeis.edu
TEXT: Marek Edelman was a leader of the underground during the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto from April 19 to May 10, 1942. He narrates this day-by-day account which consists of film shot by the Nazis of their liquidation.
Crimes and Misdemeanors
TITLE: Crimes and Misdemeanors
YEAR: 1989
DIR/PROD: Woody Allen
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 104 minutes
SOURCE: Local video store, or Swank Motion Pictures, 201 South Jefferson, Saint Louis, MO 63103. (800) 876-5577
TEXT: Woody Allen follows several plot lines each asking questions on morality, punishment and god. Do the bad prosper? Are the good punished? Is life to be lived proactively or passively? Among the key players are Woody Allen, who plays Cliff Stern, a struggling documentary filmmaker, while Alan Alda plays his brother-in-law, a successful television producer. The character Judah Rosenthal, an opthamologist who wonders if god sees all his infidelities and crimes, treats his friend and Rabbi, who is losing his sight.
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Cup Final
TITLE: Cup Final
YEAR: 1991
DIR/PROD: Eran Riklis
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew and Arabic w/ English subtitles
TIME: 107 minutes
SOURCE: First Run Features, 153 Waverly Place, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10014
TEXT: This comedy also has dramatic elements as they relate to the Lebanon War on 1982. Moshe Ivgi stars as Cohen, a soccer fanatic, who has tickets to attend the World Cup in Spain. But with the 1982 War, he ends up in Lebanon, and is taken prisoner by a PLO unit. It turns out that his captor, Ziad, played by Muhammed Bakri, is also a soccer fan. Will a friendship develop?
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Deaf Heaven
TITLE: Deaf Heaven
YEAR: 1992
DIR/PROD: Steve Levitt
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 29 minutes
SOURCE: Frameline, 346 Ninth Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
TEXT: David Opatoshu, the late Yiddish actor, plays Jake, a Holocaust survivor, who meets Paul in a Los Angeles health club. Paul's boyfriend is dying of AIDS. They share stories of guilt, survivorship, strength, and love.
Don't Touch My Holocaust
TITLE: Don't Touch My Holocaust
YEAR: 1994
DIR/PROD: Asher Tlalim
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 140 minute color video
SOURCE: Tlalim Films, 17 Bugrashov Street, Tel Aviv, Israel 63342 (972) (3)629-1018
TEXT: This documentary won the 1994 Israeli Best Documentary Prize. Tlalim spent three years following and interviewing the actors of the Akko Theatre Company (known for their highly sensitive plays on themes of Israeli culture politics and the Holocaust) as well as their audiences as they performed a piece about the Holocaust in Israel, Morocco, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Which countries remember the Shoah? Which ones forget about it? Who owns the Holocaust? Do those born after 1945 have any responsibilities?
Shine
TITLE: Shine
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Scott Hicks
COUNTRY: Australia/UK
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 105 minutes
SOURCE: video store
TEXT: An Oscar nominated film. The "true" story of pianist David Helfgott, a musical child prodigy, driven by his father, who is hanted by the loss of his family in the death camps. David goes to study in England, but cannot escape his father's domination. He has a nervous breakdown, but is nursed back to mental health by his wife. IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE MOVIE DO NOT READ PAST THIS POINT: Friends, the movie purports to be the true story. But whose version of the truth? My Aussie friends tell me (a) Peter Helfgott, David's father, left Poland (not Germany) in 1928 and arrived in Perth in 1933. He was never in a death camp, but did lose his family in the camps. (b) Beershava resident Margaret Helfgott, David oldest sister, reports that Peter was not an abusive father, that he allowed David to go to England, that he maintained a correspondence with David while he studied in England, and that David DID live with the family upon his return from England. (c) Leslie Helfgott, David younger brother by 4 years, reports that Peter Helfgott was strict but never struck the children, and that David played the Rachmaninoff 3 in Australia before he traveled to England. (d) It is believed that David suffers from a schizo-affective disorder.
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To Speak the Unspeakable
TITLE: To Speak the Unspeakable: The Message from Elie Wiesel
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Judit Elek
COUNTRY: Hungary/France
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 105 minutes
SOURCE:
TEXT: Hungarian director Judit Elek follows author and Nobelist Elie Wiesel as he returns to his birthplace in Transylvania and retraces his deportation to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Narrated by William Hurt.
Holy Week
TITLE: Holy Week
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Andrzej Wajda
COUNTRY: Poland/Germany
LANGUAGE: Polish w/ English subtitles
TIME: 97 minutes
SOURCE:
TEXT: Famed Polish direct uses Easter and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 as a backdrop to tell the story of Poles and the Holocaust, and probe their complicity or their indifference. Based on a novel by Jerzy Ardrzejewski. Irena is a young Jewish girl who escapes from the Ghetto and seeks refuge with her Catholic ex-boyfriend and his wife. As they hide from the Nazi's, they must also deal with their neighbors when they learn that Irena is Jewish, with Polish nationalist who embrace Hitler, and with others who try to help the Jews.
Arena of Murder
TITLE: Arena of Murder
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Amos Gitai
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 80 minutes
SOURCE:
TEXT: Gitai's medittaion on the aftermath of the assasination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Filmed between December 1995 - March 1996. Most critics (at the Toronto Festival) called this film a long, awful, self-indulgent film filled with a variety of editing techniques, moving and parked cars, discourses on filmmaking, and little substance.
Jud Suss / Jud Seuss
TITLE: Jud Suss
YEAR: 1940 (1938)
DIR/PROD: Veit Harlan
COUNTRY: Nazi Germany (banned in modern Germany)
LANGUAGE: German w/ English subtitles
TIME: 98 minutes
SOURCE: Try the Jewish Museum in NYC, or the War Movies and War Propoganda Media Resource Center at UC-Berkeley (642-8197). Or, unfortunately, the IHF, an Aryan Hate Group, sells copies
TEXT: Based on the true story of "the Jew Suess - Oppenheimer," the Jewish tax advisor to Karl Alexander in the early 1700's, who was publicly executed in Stuttgart. Based on a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger. Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister saw a British film version of the novel, and decided to remake the film but give it an anti-Semitic bias. The film was made in 1938, and released in 1940.
Covenant
TITLE: Covenant
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Jason Wolfsuhn, a graduate student film project at USC
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 20 minutes, 16 mm color
SOURCE: Jason Wolfsuhn
TEXT: A young rabbinical student (Hasidic) witnesses the murder of his fiance. When the police fail to investigate, he infiltrates the group of neo Nazi skinhead murderers to exact revenge.
A Tickle in the Heart
TITLE: A Tickle in The Heart
YEAR: 1995
DIR/PROD: Stefan Schwietert
COUNTRY: Germany
LANGUAGE: German and English w/ English subtitles
TIME: 87 minutes in Black and White
SOURCE: Zero Films or Eyepop Productions, 382 State Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217 USA
TEXT: This German films follows the New York born Epstein Brothers, three brothers aged 70 to 84, who were and are klezmer musicians, living in retirement communities in Florida, as they tour the U.S. and Europe. They also take a train trip to their parent's birthplace in Poland. Good music and photography.
Never Again Forever
TITLE: Never Again Forever
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Danae Elon and Pierre Chainet
COUNTRY: Israel/USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 60
SOURCE: Elon Productions, 303 East Houston Street, New York, NY 10002 USA Fax: 212. 529.9820
TEXT: Danae Elon, daughter of the author Amos Elon, spent nearly three years making this documentary focusing on the inner workings of the Jewish Defense Organization in New York and the West Bank. Theme is why people join the group and what moves them and moved them to extreme acts of violence.
Me and My Matchmaker
TITLE: Me and My Matchmaker
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Mark Wexler / Hajira Majid
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 55
SOURCE: Wexlers World, 600 N. McClurg Ct #3502A, Chicago, IL 60611 USA. 312.654.8500
TEXT: Mark Wexler is single and 39 when he begins shooting this documentary. Half Jewish on his father's side, he decides to film a portrait of Irene Nathan, a Chicago based Jewish matchmaker in her 60's who is credited with about 285 marriages and only four divorces. Wexler gets pulled into his subject and moves from behind the camera to get fixed up on dates himself. Filled with nuances, body language, and the silences that speak volumes, the relationship between Mark and his matchmaker becomes very close. Mark and the audience end up learning more about him, as he begins to ask himself what he is looking for in a wife and future.
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Camp Stories
TITLE: Camp Stories
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Herbert Biegel
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 99 minutes in 35 mm
SOURCE: in theatrical release
TEXT: A comic drama about David Katz, a 15 year old movie buff in the 1950's. But unfortunately for David, rather than spending a Summer at the movies, he is sent by his parents to Camp Ararat, a failing Jewish Summer camp (or the Isle of Misfit Campers) in the Poconos (Pennsylvania). Rather than teach him about Judaism, the camp affects his life in another profound manner. Mimicing the films of the 50's, especially The Caine Mutiny, the film features the moral conflicts faced by misfit campers, a sadistic counselor, and his sexy wife. Cameos by Jerry Stiller as the retiring camp director and Elliot Gould
Exodus 1947
TITLE: Exodus 1947
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Elizabeth Rodgers / Robby Henson
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 60 minute video
SOURCE: National Center for Jewish Film, $147. NCJF@logos.cc.brandeis.edu
TEXT: A documentary on the Summer 1947 formation, sailing, and aftermath of the ship, Exodus 1947, which attempted to run the British blockade of Palestine. Includes interview with some of the American / Baltimore Jews who secretly financed and crewed the ship and its cargo of 4,500 Holocaust survivors. Contains newsreel footage.
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I Was a Jewish Sex Worker
TITLE: I Was a Jewish Sex Worker
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Phillip B. Roth
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English with a Yiddish song soundtrack
TIME: 75 minutes in 16 mm
SOURCE: unknown
TEXT: A provocative, egocentric, autobiographical pic focusing on filmmaker Phillip Roth, who worked as a homosexual prostitute in New York City. The film contains explicit scenes of a sexual nature mixed with discussions on the religious and sexual yearnings of Roth and his performance artist friends, including Annie Sprinkle , Rosa von Prauheim, and his 81 year old grandmother, Sylvia Eisen.
We Are Going To America
TITLE: We Are Going To America
YEAR: 1992
DIR/PROD: Efim Gribov
COUNTRY: Russia
LANGUAGE: Russian w/ English subtitles
TIME: 120 minutes in 35 mm
SOURCE: unknown
TEXT: Inspired by the paintings of Marc Chagall, Mr. Gribov has crafted a tragic-comic tale of one family's journey from shtetl towards America. As seen through the eyes of 11 year old Motl, as he and an assortment of characters, including an orphan named Taibl, and a madwoman named Feigele, make an adventorous voyage to America
A Summer in La Goulette
TITLE: A Summer in La Goulette / Un Ete a La Goulette
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Ferid Boughedir / Hassine Soufi
COUNTRY: France / Tunisia / Belgium
LANGUAGE: French with English subtitles
TIME: 100 minutes, 35mm
SOURCE: Flach Pyramide Intnl, 5 Rue Richepanse, 75008 Paris France. 33.1.42.96.02.20
TEXT: A comedy that explores the complicated relationships in the Middle East. The place is La Goulette, a small Tunisian harbor town. The time is a few months before the 6-Day War in June 1967, a time when people of different religions in North Africa exist side by side. Youssef, Jojo, and Giuseppe are good friends, as are their daughters. Meriem, Gigi, and Tina decide to lose their virginity by August 15. When they start to chase boys of different religions, all hell breaks loose, and friendships, bonds, and taboos are strained.
Mother Night
TITLE: Mother Night
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Keith Gordon / Ruth Vitale, Mark Ordesky, Linda Reisman
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 113 minutes, 35mm
SOURCE: Fine Line Features, 888 7th Avenue, New York, NY USA
TEXT: Keith Gordon is an experienced director of WWII-based films. This film is an adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's book, Mother Night. Both provaocative and comic, this story which stars Nick Nolte, Sheryl Lee, John Goodman, and Alan Arkin is about Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American ex pat writer living in Germany. He becomes a secret agent for the Allies and passes coded messages to them duing the War using his popular Nazi propoganda radio show. He is a star spokesman for the Nazis duing the War. Years later, he is living anonymously in New York City. After being recognized by a Jewish neighbor, he is pursued by Israeli and American authorities and embraced by neo-Nazis. The question is where one's archetypical role end and one's self begin.
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Autumn Sun / Sol de Otono
TITLE: Autumn Sun / Sol de Otono
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Eduardo Mignogna
COUNTRY: Argentina
LANGUAGE: Spanish w/ English subtitles
TIME: 108 minutes in 35mm
SOURCE: Eduardo Mignogna and Associados, Ugarteche 3178 9 Suite #176; (1425) Cap. Fed. - Argentina Telephone: (541) 801-9699 Fax: (541) 803-2680
TEXT: This love story stars Norma Aleandro (The Official Story) and Federico Luppi, Argentina's top stars. Norma plays a 55 year old, Jewish, single accountant who places a personal ad in a Buenos Aires newspaper in order to find a boy friend before her brother from Boston visits her (she has been telling him that she is in love). Federico Luppi plays Raul, the single respondent to the advertisement. He is a sick widower obsessed with his dead wife. He is also not Jewish. Desperate, she replays Pigmalian, and enlists him to play her boyfriend, Saul, and teaches him to act "Jewish."
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Rothschilds Violin
TITLE: Rothschilds Violin / Le Violin de Rothschild
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Edgardo Cozarinsky
COUNTRY: France/ Switzerland / Finland / Hungary
LANGUAGE: French with English subtitles
TIME: 98 minutes
SOURCE: MKL / Lazennec Diffusion Films, Paris, France
TEXT: In a style that lies somewhere between documentary and drama, this film is based on a Checkov story about a Jewish music student in the late 1930's who is laboring over composing an opera. When Germany invades Poland, the student joins the Russian Army in order to fight, but disappears during the Siege of Leningrad. Before he disappears however, he finishes his opera, and sends the compositions to his teacher, Shostakovich. Shostakovich attempts to produce the opera, but Stalin bans it. Shastokovich is ridden with so much guilt that he begins to blend more and more Jewish themes into his later works (whether this is true or not depends on which musicologist you ask). In mid-movie, the 40 minute opera is staged. The primary focus of the film is on Shostakovich's ardor for the early Soviet state, but the waning of his beliefs after the War.
Josiahs Canon
TITLE: Josiahs Canon
YEAR: 1997/98
DIR/PROD: maybe Jon Turteltaub / Michael Douglas
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: not made yet
SOURCE: not made yet
TEXT: Based on a script by Jeff King, this piece is being shopped around Hollywood. It would be about a Holocaust survivor turned master bank robber, who is enlisted by some Jewish leaders (everybody's always a leader) to a rob a Swiss bank that hoardes riches stolen from Jewish families by the Nazis.
One More Kiss and He Is Dead
TITLE: One More Kiss and He Is Dead
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Hans Christoph Blumenberg
COUNTRY: Germany
LANGUAGE: German w/ English subtitles
TIME:
SOURCE:
TEXT: This is a documentary focusing on the German Jewish filmmaker, Reinhold Schunzel, the only Jew allowed to continue to work in Germany during the Third Reich, before he escaped to Hollywood, where he acted in WWII films, always playing the evil, sadistic Nazi. Includes clips from Schunzels early films, includes his 1993 version of Victor/Victoria.
Women / Nasheem
TITLE: Women / Nasheem
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Moshe Mizrahi / Michael Sharfstein and Amitan Manelzon
COUNTRY: Israel
LANGUAGE: Hebrew w/ English subtitles
TIME: 98 minutes
SOURCE: Movit Productions Ltd, Tel Aviv, Israel
TEXT: Mizrahi is an expert at evoking soft, romantic visuals. This is based on a story by Yehuda Buria. It is a look at Jerusalem at the turn of the century. It is a story of polygamy with biblical references. Michal Bat Adam plays Rebecca, wife of Jacob, who is a respected Sephardic rabbi and Cabalist. After 15 years of marriage she has not become pregnant, and convinces her husband to take a surrogate (second) wife. After much prodding, Jacob takes an 18 year old orphan (Sultana), chosen by Rebecca, into the house as a second wife. Rebecca becomes jealous. Hebrew speakers have told me that some great dialogue is in verse, which is lost in the English subtitles. It is a story of jealousy, faith, the essence of love, infertility and the yearning for a child.
SEE ALSO MIZRAHI'S earlier work from 1972, called "I LOVE YOU ROSA" about a widowed 21 year old woman who awaits her husband's younger brother to attain maturity so that he can either "free" her or marry her, in accordance with Jewish law.
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Moses at Oxford
TITLE: Moses at Oxford
YEAR: 1996
DIR/PROD: Peter and Harriet Getzels
COUNTRY: UK/USA
LANGUAGE: English
TIME: 55 minutes
SOURCE: directors, or through the Margaret Mead Film Fest, 1996/97
TEXT: The exploits of a 29 year old, self-promoting, Lubavitch Rabbi from the U.S., Rabbi Shmuel Boteach, as he seeks new members for his community at Oxford University, is chronicled in the documentary -- from promoting new Jewish attitudes toward sex, to having a cannabis covered Sukkah, to inviting Argentine soccer star Diego Maradonna to the Oxford Union. This cigar smoking father of five runs the L'Chaim Society at Oxford, which is the second largest club at the school.
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