Thank You!

Saturday, March 1

Bay Area Premiere! Grand Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival! Nominated for 10 Israel Academy Awards, including Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Actress and Best Music.

Miri is a 37-year old, twice-widowed El Al stewardess who has just about given up on life. One day, she unexpectedly finds herself saddled with a small Chinese boy whose migrant-worker mother has been summarily deported from Israel. In returning the boy to his mother, Miri makes her own journey to a new life.

Co-sponsors: Beth Chaim Congregation and the Consulate General of Israel. Underwritten by Betsy Fels Pottruck and Beryl and Ivor Silver.

East Bay Premiere! With director Joe Cedar being named "Best Director" at the Berlin International Film Festival and the film being nominated for an American Oscar, Beaufort can indeed be called "Israel's first great war movie." Based on true events that took place in 2000, this feature film explores the heart breaking and unenviable mission of a small Israeli unit stationed at Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. Amidst increasingly deadly enemy attacks, the unit's 22-year-old commander must wrestle with the government's decision to blow up the symbolic command post just as the Israel Defense Forces leaves Lebanon. Adult content.

Co-sponsor: Jewish Community Foundation and Israel at 60.

Sunday, March 2

This warm family film could be renamed "The Outsiders" as it focuses on the challenges facing a boy who doesn't fit into his kibbutz close-knit society; a Russian girl with telepathic powers; her mentally challenged brother, and a boy who is trying to cope with the death of his father. All four embark on a rescue expedition to save the lives of two travelers who have disappeared in Israel's sourthern desert. Determined to find the missing couple, the friends form a heroic team that shows us that children can make a difference in the world.

Contra Costa Premiere! Enter the funny, larger-than-life world of Yiddish Theater through this moving new documentary film about Zypora Spaisman, an 85+ year-old actress who has kept alive the only Yiddish theater in America. With a passion for art, life and Yiddish, she fights to be relevant in a society that worships youth. A must see film for anyone who loves theater and has realized Yiddish is HIP!

Guest Speaker: DIrector Dan Katzir (his films-Out for Love, Be Back Shortly and Company Jasmine-have won 22 international awards in the US, Europe and Asia).

East Bay Premiere! Winner of the Sapir Prize for Best Documentary

Wolfgang Lotz was known as a wealthy, ex-Nazi soldier who raised horses and sent champagne and other expensive gifts to friends in Egyptian society. But in reality, the rusty-haired Lutz was a Jew, an Israeli citizen and a member of one of the world's premier spy organizations--the Mossad. Only recently was the full extent of his spying revealed, including his friendship with highly-placed Egyptian intelligence officers. class="normal"

Co-sponsor: Jewish Community Federation's Business & Professionals Division.

East Bay Premiere! With director Joe Cedar being named "Best Director" at the Berlin International Film Festival and the film being nominated for an American Oscar, Beaufort can indeed be called "Israel's first great war movie." Based on true events that took place in 2000, this feature film explores the heart breaking and unenviable mission of a small Israeli unit stationed at Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. Amidst increasingly deadly enemy attacks, the unit's 22-year-old commander must wrestle with the government's decision to blow up the symbolic command post just as the Israel Defense Forces leaves Lebanon. Adult content.

Co-sponsor: JCRC/East Bay Region.

Lulu, Noam and Yal­-one straight woman and two gay men-are hip, twenty-somethings who share an apartment in a chic neighborhood in Tel Aviv. They are doing their best to enjoy life and avoid politics, until Noam begins to date Assraf, a Palestinian who has gone "undercover" inside Israel. Director Eytan Fox (Walk on Water, Yossi and Jagger) has created a heart-touching look at a slice of Israeli life made increasingly turbulent by regional politics. Adult content.

Co-sponsors: Jewish Community Federation's Young Leadership Division and Temple Isaiah.
Guest Speaker: Donny Inbar, SF Israel Center.

It is 1960 London, and while his fellow teens are obsessed with rock n' roll, David Wiseman is interested only in playing cricket. Unfortunately his proficiency does not match his passion for the sport. When a Jamaican ex-cricket star moves next door and agrees to tutor him, David dreams of athletic stardom. Soon, however, racial tensions explode in his neighborhood, and David's family is caught in the middle.

WITH

A short feature by Noah Lagin, a student filmmaker at NYU.
Co-sponsors: Midrasha in Tri-Valley/Tri-Cities and Jewish Community Foundation.

Monday, March 3

What can you say about a film that features Joan Rivers, Gilda Radner, Wendy Wasserstein, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker and Molly Picon-six of the greatest female comic performers of the last century? In one word: Hilarious! Hosted by four of today's funniest stand-up comediennes (filmed noshing in Katz's New York Deli), we travel from the age of Silent Films to the Ziegfield Follies and ultimately to television's Saturday Night Live, learning why there is truth in the old adage: "death is easy…comedy is hard."

This film is in memory of Irwin Horowitz. Co-sponsor: Jewish Community Federation's Women's Philanthropy Division.

This touching romantic comedy begins with two French thirty-somethings-Ismaël and Clara-who are very much in love. The happy couple is able to ignore the differences of their religious backgrounds until Clara becomes pregnant. Then, Ismael wonders whether his Muslim family will accept the new circumstances, and Clara learns that her Jewish parents define an interfaith marriage as one between Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews. Bad Faith tenderly captures what happens when the outside world intrudes upon true love. Adult content.

Co-sponsor: Jewish Community Federation's Building Jewish Bridges.

Winner of six Israel Academy Awards (including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Script), this film is a definite crowd pleaser. Aviva, a hard-working hotel cook in Tiberias, dreams about becoming a published author. When she meets Oded, a well-established novelist, he leads her to believe that he will help her achieve her ambition. However, he has other plans for her literary talents.

Underwritten by Jo-Ann and Arnold Jacobson, M.D.

Tuesday, March 4

In a journey through seven countries, this documentary takes the audience into the violent whirlwind of fanaticism, greed, and warfare that threatened to wipe out Europe's artistic heritage. But young art professionals as well as ordinary heroes, from truck drivers to department store clerks, fought back with an extraordinary effort to safeguard, rescue and return the millions of lost, hidden and stolen treasures that were systematically stolen by the Nazis during the reign of the Third Reich.

Co-sponsor: Congregation B'nai Tikvah. Guest Speaker: Riva Gambert, Jewish Community Federation.

Winner Berlin International Film Festival! Winner of 5 Israeli Film Academy Awards! Sundance Film Festival Winner! Brilliantly acted and hauntingly beautiful, this feature film focuses on the close-knit society of the 1970s kibbutz where everyone knows everyone's business and a person can get into trouble for being too individualistic. It is also a coming of age story in which twelve-year-old Dvir must navigate between the kibbutz's values and those of his widowed mother. Adult content.

East Bay Premiere! Based upon a true story, this winner of Cinema Brazil's Grand Prize captures the tumultuous life of Olga Benário, a German woman who, abandoning her middle-class Jewish background, becomes a dedicated communist at the age of fifteen. Eventually she is sent to Rio de Janiero, to play the part of the wife of Brazilian Communist leader Luis Carlos Prestes. When an attempted coup fails to overthrow the fascist government, Brazilian dictator Getulio Vargas has the couple arrested, sending Prestes to jail, and deporting Olga to Nazi Germany. Adult content.

Set against the backdrop of Budapest, this haunting, romantic mystery is an ironic parable about innocence and love, guilt and hate. Ilona Varnai is loved by three men-the dashing restaurant owner Laszlo Szabo; the somber young pianist, Andras Aradi, who composed the ballad Gloomy Sunday just for her, and the German camera salesman Hans Wieck. When Wieck returns to Budapest as an SS officer during WWII, his obsession for Ilona threatens to destroy them all.

Wednesday, March 5

East Bay Premiere! Longing explores the faith of a small group of crypto-Jews whose ancestors were European Jews who immigrated to South America and were forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition. Isolated in Catholic countries, their Jewish beliefs were hidden and their Jewish identities almost totally erased. This moving documentary follows six individuals who studied with an American rabbi over the Internet so that they could complete their journey back to their Jewish heritage.

Guest Speaker: Rabbi Roberto Graetz.

East Bay Premiere! Nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Film, Twin Sisters tells the heart breaking story of Lotte and Anna, two sisters who become orphans by the age of six. One is sent to live a life of privilege with wealthy relatives in the Netherlands, while the other stays in Germany to face a harsh existence on her uncle's small farm. When they reconnect years later, they discover that they were pitted on opposite sides of World War II, following Germany's invasion of Holland.

East Bay Premiere! Featuring a brilliant performance from Agnès Jaoui, this feature film captures the emotionally charged atmosphere both during and after the Liberation of France when Jewish children (some who had been in hiding and others who had been deported to camps) were sent to half-way houses, waiting to see if their parents were among the survivors of WWII. Among the thousands who found refuge in such homes was Elie Wiesel. The film focuses on one country residence just outside Paris, where the tireless Nina works hard to comfort the children in her care as they learn to live again.

Co-sponsors: Diablo Valley Hadassah & Tikvah Group and the Holocaust Center of Northern California.

Thursday, March 6

East Bay Premiere! The Ma'ale School of Television, Film and the Arts in Jerusalem is the only institution of its kind in the world. Founded in 1989, its goal is to train film and television professionals deeply rooted in religious faith. The school aims to build bridges that will break down clichés in the perception of religion. We will see shorts created by young filmmakers who bring an authentic voice to the multi-cultural mosaic that is Israeli society.

WITH

When Boston director Daniel Akiba's brother Jonah traveled to Israel, the last thing his family expected was that he would become fervently religious. In an effort to better understand his brother's new life, Akiba documented his family's trip to Israel seven years later to attend Jonah's wedding. Along the way he explores how his brother's embrace of Orthodox Judaism affected them all.

Guess who is directing the Christmas pageant? In this romantic comedy-drama, Hazel Levine, an extroverted Jewish actress from Johannesburg, is stranded in a small South African town. Soon, she finds herself drafted to direct the annual Nativity play, falls in love with a ruggedly handsome Boer sheep farmer, and is forced to deal with the petty intrigues of the townsfolk when she wants to involve the Black community in the pageant. Inside Out is a must-see and considered one of the most delightful films we've shown in the past thirteen years!

East Bay Premiere! Winner of Tribeca Film Festival 2007 Top Award. This astonishing film is a journey to the innermost world of the zealous believer. Living with his wife and son in the ultra-orthodox community of Jerusalem, Rabbi Abraham (Assi Dayan in a brilliant performance) devotes his life to the study of Jewish Law, trying to impart his beliefs to his young son. But Abraham's guidance can count for only so much in the scheme of the universe. On a summer vacation to the Dead Sea, his faith is put to the test.

Winner of six Israel Academy Awards (including Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Script), this film is a definite crowd pleaser. Aviva, a hard-working hotel cook in Tiberias, dreams about becoming a published author. When she meets Oded, a well-established novelist, he leads her to believe that he will help her achieve her ambition. However, he has other plans for her literary talents.

Underwritten by Jo-Ann and Arnold Jacobson, M.D.

Friday, March 7

Israeli filmmaker Shahar Cohen finds himself in a personal rut until his father suggests that they go on a road trip and retrace the route that the Jewish Brigade took during WWII as it fought the Nazis. The elder Cohen fought in the Brigade and shares his war stories with his son, including the fact that he may have left a few "souvenirs" in certain European cities who would now be older than Shahar himself.

WITH

Familial wounds resurface in this moving documentary. Filmmaker Ido Haar decides to investigate the fate of his maternal grandfather, a high ranking Red Army officer in post war Latvia who disappeared after Ido's grandmother became pregnant. Ido's mother, 57-year-old Marina, struggles between long-held resentments and a chance for reconciliation with the father she has never met.