Rehoboth Beach Jewish Film Festival to present 10 films March 21-25
The Rehoboth Beach Film Society will partner with Seaside Jewish Community in presenting the third annual Rehoboth Beach Jewish Film Festival. The mission of this event is to deepen awareness of Jewish cultures and experiences, and to explore community differences and commonalities through the art of film.
Ten films will be presented over five days, Wednesday to Sunday, March 21 to 25, at the Cinema Art Theater, 17701 Dartmouth Drive, Dartmouth Plaza behind the Lewes Wawa.
This year’s films will take the viewer across the globe – from the diverse streets of Jerusalem, to the early days of cinema in India, and even to a suburban mall in Kansas City – to tell the stories of how the Jewish experience continues to inspire and change the world. To respect the Jewish Sabbath, Seaside Jewish Community is not hosting films on Friday night or Saturday afternoon.
”Shalom Bollywood” will begin at 4 p.m., Wednesday, March 21. While celebrating the all-singing, all-dancing history of the world’s largest film industry, the film reveals the unlikely story of the 2,000-year-old Indian Jewish community and its formative place in shaping that history.
At the advent of the Indian cinema industry, it was taboo for Hindu and Islamic women to perform onscreen. Indian Jewish women took up the female lead roles and continued to do so for decades. Using stage names, the women weren’t obviously identified as Jewish, and were commonly thought to be Christian or Muslim. With access to rare archival footage, Danny Ben-Moshe’s new documentary tells its extraordinary tale through the lives of Indian cinema’s Jewish icons at the heart of Bollywood from the turn of the 20th century to the present day.
“Children of Chance” will be screened at 4 p.m., Thursday, March 22, and 7:30 p.m., Saturday, March 24. In a lucky twist of fate, young Maurice Gutman (Matteo Perez) narrowly escapes a roundup of Jews in Paris after breaking his leg in a dust-up with bullies. Whisked away in an ambulance, he is forced to watch helplessly as his family is arrested by French police. While being treated for his injury, Maurice is diagnosed with tuberculosis and committed to a long-term treatment facility in the suburb of Garches. As the war intensifies, the sympathetic chief physician and his hospital staff must resort to drastic measures to keep the Jewish patients safe from Nazi patrols. “Children of Chance” is based on a true story.
“A Quiet Heart” is set for 7 p.m., Thursday, March 22. In present-day Jerusalem, a city increasingly dominated by religious fanaticism, Naomi, a secular young woman, seeks refuge from the pressure of her life as a concert pianist. Overwhelmed by the expectations of her parents and her colleagues in Tel Aviv, Naomi seeks anonymity and solitude in the ancient city. Despite her intentions to stay alone, however, Naomi quickly makes two unexpected connections – one with a musically gifted Ultra-Orthodox young boy who lives in her building, and the other with Fabrizio, a charismatic Italian monk and organist. While these relationships allow Naomi to reconnect with her love of music and sense of meaning, they also make her a target in her new community. Faced with escalating isolation and violence, Naomi must learn to use music as a bridge to overcome towering religious barriers.
“The Testament” will be screened at 12:30 p.m., Friday, March 23. Yoel, a senior Holocaust researcher, is in the midst of a widely covered legal battle with powerful forces in Austria concerning a brutal massacre of Jews that took place toward the end of World War II in the village of Lensdorf. While investigating the incident, Yoel examines classified testimonies of Holocaust survivors, and to his shock and surprise, he finds a testimony given by his mother, a testimony he didn't know existed. In her testimony she confesses a substantial secret from her past. Trapped between walls of silence – on one side, denial of the Holocaust on the part of the villagers, and on the other, his mother's silence regarding her past – Yoel decides to continue his investigations even at the cost of ruining his personal and professional life.
“Big Sonia” is set for 3:30 p.m., Friday, March 23. In the last store in a defunct shopping mall, 91-year-old Sonia Warshawski – great-grandmother, businesswoman and Holocaust survivor – runs the tailor shop she’s owned for more than 30 years. But when she’s served an eviction notice, the specter of retirement prompts Sonia to revisit her harrowing past as a refugee and witness to genocide. A poignant story of generational trauma and healing, the film also offers a laugh-out-loud-funny portrait of the power of love to triumph over bigotry, and the power of truth-telling to heal.
”1945” will be shown at 7 p.m., Friday, March 23. On a summer day in 1945, an Orthodox man and his grown son return to a village in Hungary while the villagers prepare for the wedding of the town clerk's son. The townspeople – suspicious, remorseful, fearful, and cunning – expect the worst and behave accordingly. The town clerk fears the men may be heirs of the village's deported Jews and expects them to demand their illegally acquired property back. Director Ferenc Török paints a complex picture of a society trying to come to terms with the recent horrors they’ve experienced, perpetrated, or just tolerated for personal gain.
Judy Catterton will facilitate a post-screening discussion. By virtue of her professional and personal experience, Catterton is especially well-suited for moderating this provocative film. She practiced law in Montgomery County, Md., first as a criminal prosecutor and then as a criminal defense attorney. She served as president of the Maryland Criminal Defense Attorneys Association. Among many other professional activities, she participated in mock trials with members of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association. Catterton’s grandparents escaped the pogroms. She lives in Rehoboth Beach with her husband.
”Holy Air” will be screened at 1 p.m., Saturday, March 24. Adam (writer and director Shady Srour) is a Christian Arab living in Nazareth – a member of a vanishing minority within a minority in the Holy Land and the Middle East. His wife Lamia is a strong, beautiful and progressive Arab woman who runs a foundation for women’s rights. When Adam learns that Lamia is pregnant and his father falls very ill, he evaluates his life and realizes that he has not achieved much. Despite all his business ideas failing so far, he gives one last try to make it big. And what’s better to sell in the Holy Land other than the very air that Virgin Mary breathed during her annunciation? But in order to bring such a product into the market, he needs to find allies from the three cultures ruling over Nazareth – the Jewish politicians, the Muslim mafia boss and the Catholic church officials. In a politically unstable world where religion is just another merchandise, can the Holy Air be Adam’s salvation, or is it just an illusion? “
“Complicit” will be shown at 4 p.m., Saturday, March 24. The film explores the impact of the WWII Jewish refugee issue on the Roosevelt legacy through a mythical courtroom drama that puts Franklin D. Roosevelt on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity. “Complicit” includes never-before-seen footage of U.S. Special Envoy Hannah Rosenthal’s powerful exposé of America’s inadequate response to the Jewish refugee crisis. Viewers will see the 2012 State Department ceremony in which Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns makes the first apology to a delegation of surviving passengers from the refugee ship SS St. Louis before a delegation of high-ranking diplomats and foreign service officers. “Complicit” presents rare and candid interviews with these heroic refugees who were turned away by the United States in June 1939, and returned to the U.S. to make extraordinary contributions to American society. The film integrates painful history with compelling drama.
Director Michael Ivan Schwartz will be in attendance for a post-screening audience discussion. Schwartz has produced award-winning documentaries while trotting the globe to distant lands including Fiji, Honduras, Kenya, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Turkmenistan. He also produced a national TV program called “Behind Lacrosse.”
“A Tale of Love and Darkness” is set for 12 p.m., Sunday, March 25. The film is based on the memories of Amos Oz, growing up in Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood with Arieh, his academic father and Fania, his dreamy, imaginative mother. They were one of many Jewish families who moved to Palestine from Europe during the 1930s and ‘40s to escape persecution. The terror of the war and running from home had been followed by the tedium of everyday life, which weighed heavily on Fania's spirit. Unhappy in her marriage and intellectually stifled, she would make up stories of adventures (like treks across the desert) to cheer herself up and entertain her 10-year-old son Amos. When independence didn't bring the renewed sense of life that Fania had hoped for, she slipped into solitude and sadness. Unable to help her, Amos was forced to say an untimely goodbye. As he witnessed the birth of Israel, he had to come to terms with his own new beginning. Screenplay-writer Natalie Portman makes her directing debut and plays the role of Fania.
“Past Life” will be screened at 3 p.m., Sunday, March 25. Inspired by true events, the film tracks the daring 1977 trans-European odyssey of two sisters – one an introverted, ambitious classical music composer, and the other a combative liberal magazine editor. As they try to unravel a disturbing wartime mystery about their father’s life in Poland that has cast a foreboding shadow on their entire lives, they realize that freedom from the shackles of the past requires painful sacrifices, as does the struggle to discover one’s unique voice.
Doors open 30 minutes prior to the start of each screening. Admission is $10 per screening. Seating is limited. To purchase tickets in advance, go to www.rehobothfilm.com, call 302-645-9095, Ext. 1, or visit the film society office between 9 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday. Note that tickets are nonrefundable and there will be no exchanges.
