18
ARTS
APRIL 13, 2012 THE JEWISH ADVOCATE
From the zany silent films of Max Davidson to a probing documentary that explores abuse
of Jewish divorces, JEWISHFILM.2012 ranges across the decades and the continents.
The festival, now in its 15th year, is sponsored by the National Center for Jewish Film,
which is based at Brandeis University. It will run April 18-29 at the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and the West Newton Cinema.
Festival and ticket information is available at NCJF’s website, www.jewishfilm.org.
Macho cops, star-crossed lovers, Nazi terror
‘Never Forget to Lie’ (USA, 2012)
April 18, 6:15 p.m. at MFA (Alfond)
In English and Polish with English subtitles
Q&A with director Marian Marzynski
Emmy Award-winning filmmaker (and Brookline resident)
Marian Marzynski began his 40-year career in media in his native Poland as a journalist and TV host. Marzynski survived the
Holocaust as a Jewish child hidden by Christians. In “Never Forget to Lie,” the director explores, for the
first time, his own wartime experiences and those of other child survivors, teasing out their feelings about
Poland, the Catholic Church, and the ramifications of pretending to be someone you’re not.
‘Joanna’ (Poland, 2010)
April 19, 5 p.m. and 7:15 p.m., at MFA (Alfond)
In Polish and German with English subtitles
In German-occupied Krakow, Joanna (Urszula Grabowska), a young
Polish woman whose husband is presumed dead at the front, makes a
life changing, split-second decision after stumbling upon an 8-year-old
Jewish girl hiding in a church. Joanna harbors the girl in her apartment,
but pressures mount when neighbors and family become suspicious. Additional complications arise in this taut
drama, based on a true story, when Joanna falls victim to advances from a Nazi officer and threats from the
Polish resistance. Feliks Falk – who, along with Agnieszka Holland and others, pioneered the influential Polish film movement The Cinema of Moral Concern – directs Grabowska in an award-winning performance.
‘The Policeman/Hashoter’ (Israel, 2011)
April 20, 8:15 p.m., at MFA (Alfond)
April 29, 7:15 p.m., at West Newton Cinema
In Hebrew with English subtitles
Pivoting on the initially unrelated activities of an elite anti-terrorist police unit and some wealthy young anarchists, this controversial drama marks the feature debut of writer-director Nadav Lapid. Timely in light of recent unrest over social and economic inequities in Israel, the film depicts the muscular, borderline sensual way the macho cops
relate to one another. Although the youthful revolutionaries come off as petulant and spoiled, their point
about the growing gap between the Israeli haves and have-nots cannot be ignored, even by the policemen
sent on a rare mission to engage their fellow countrymen.
‘Hotel Lux’ (Germany, 2011)
April 26, 7 p.m., at Institute of Contemporary Art
In German with English subtitles
In this black comedy satirizing the Nazi regime and Stalin’s
reign of terror, writer/ director Leander Haußmann pays homage to Ernst Lubitsch’s ’40s classic “To Be or Not to Be.” In
1930s Berlin, Cabaret star Hans Zeisig (Michael Bully Herbig)
gets by on charisma and talent until he finally pushes the envelope too far in his popular Stalin-Hitler comedy act. Having wrangled false papers, he sets out for Hollywood, but ends up in Moscow instead, at the infamous Hotel Lux, home to Communist politicos and European exiles fleeing Hitler. A case of mistaken identity brings Zeisig face to face with Stalin, and Zeisig
must pull off the performance of a lifetime. When Zeisig is reunited with his beautiful Communist love interest Frida (Thekla Reuten) and his former Jewish stage partner Meyer (Jürgen Vogel), the three embark
on a screwball adventure.
‘How to Re-Establish a Vodka Empire’ (UK, 2012)
April 22, 1:30 p.m., at MFA (Remis)
Rummaging through the attic of his family home, British filmmaker
Daniel Edelstyn discovers the journals of a grandmother – the daughter
of wealthy Ukrainian Jews who had been a budding writer and dancer
before being forced into exile by the 1917 Revolution. Intrigued, Edelstyn travels to the Ukraine in search of his Jewish roots. When he finds
that the vodka distillery opened by his great grandfather in 1904 is still in operation, Edelstyn decides –
despite his utter lack of business experience – to become a liquor entrepreneur. This funny, charming documentary employs a mix of vérité cinematography and inventive animated sequences created by and starring the artist Hilary Powel (Edelstyn’s wife).
‘In Heaven, Underground’ (Germany, 2011)
April 29, 2:15 p.m., at West Newton Cinema
In German and Russian with English subtitles
North of Berlin’s city center, amid 100 acres of statuesque trees
and lush foliage, lies the 130-year-old Weißensee Jewish Cemetery, the oldest Jewish cemetery still in use in Europe. Its
115,000 graves and meticulous archive of paper records have
miraculously survived, even through the Nazi regime. Director
Britta Wauer’s portrait of this extraordinary place of both Jewish continuity and loss follows a delightful array
of characters from around the world, past and present: mourners, tourists, a young family residing at the cemetery, a third-generation gravedigger and an ornithologist studying rare birds of prey.
Preceded by ‘Our Time in the Garden’ (USA, 1981)
Introduced by director Ron Blau
Boston filmmaker Ron Blau’s acclaimed experimental short uses home movies and overlapping soundtracks
to depict his mother’s childhood growing up Jewish in 1930s Berlin before her family fled the Nazi regime.
Max Davidson 1920s Silent Film Comedies
April 22, 11:15 a.m., at MFA (Remis)
Berlin-born comedian Max Davidson (1875-1950) appeared in
200 Hollywood films between 1912 and 1942. In the 1920s,
working with Hal Roach and Leo McCarey, Davidson created
uproarious comedies playing the stereotypical European Jew
struggling like a fish out of water in Los Angeles. Newly restored by the Munich Filmmuseum, the short movies are:
‘Why Girls Say No’ (1927) Max hopes his daughter
will marry “a nice Jewish boy” only to find her falling for “an
Irisher” – with a secret.
‘Jewish Prudence’ (1927) Trying to find vocations for his good-for-nothing sons, Papa Gimplewart comes up with a none-too-brilliant scheme that lands him in court.
‘The Boy Friend’ (1928) When Max’s daughter brings home a darling young man she’s met at the
shoe store, her parents try to prevent the marriage by acting crazy as loons.
‘My Australia’ (Israel/Poland, 2011)
April 22, 3:15 p.m., at MFA (Remis)
In Polish and Hebrew with English subtitles
In a poor neighborhood in ’60s Lodz, Poland, 10-year-old Tadek
(Jakub Wróblewski) and his older brother, Andrzej (Lukasz Sikora), are in a neo-Nazi street gang that beats up Jewish kids. When
they are arrested, their mother, Halina (Aleksandra Poplawska), finally reveals that although she raised them
as Catholics, they are in fact Jews and that she is a Holocaust survivor. After telling Tadek they are going to
Australia, she actually moves them to Israel. When Halina fails to find employment in Haifa, Tadek and Andrzej are dispatched to a kibbutz, where they experience profound culture shock. This tender and humorous
period drama is based on writer-director Ami Drozd’s own experiences.
‘Punk Jews’ (USA, 2012)
April 25, 8 p.m., at MFA (Alfond)
Q&A with director Jesse Zook Mann and producer
Evan Kleinman
Profiling Hassidic punk rockers, Yiddish street performers,
African-American Jewish activists and more, this documentary
explores provocateurs and committed Jews who are asking
what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. Meet Yishai,
lead singer of Moshiach Oi, the Sukkos Mob of the New Yiddish Rep; the hipster Orthodox participants of
Cholent; the Amazing Amy Yoga Yenta; Kal Holczler, founder of Voices of Dignity; and African-American Hasidic hip-hop sensation Y-Love.
White: A Memoir in Color (USA, 2012)
April 29, noon, at West Newton Cinema
Q&A with director Joel Katz
Joel Katz explores what it means to be white in America through the
story of his own family. The son of Jewish immigrant parents who assimilated in 1930s Brooklyn, Katz grew up with a father who was a professor at Howard University, a traditionally black college, during the
height of the civil rights movement. Katz himself became a professor at a
predominantly non-white university, and later confronted his own racial
attitudes when he and his wife adopted a mixed-race child.
Women Unchained (USA, 2011)
April 25, 6 p.m., at MFA (Alfond)
In English and Hebrew with English subtitles. Q&A with director
Beverly Siegel; Lisa Fishbayn of Hadassah-Brandeis Institute;
and Rabbi Shlomo Weissmann, director Beth Din of America
This documentary explores the experiences of agunot, women
whose husbands refuse to grant them a Jewish divorce or get. It
exposes “get-o-nomics” extortion schemes and the connection
between get abuse and domestic violence. Shot in Israel, New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami and Los
Angeles, the film includes interviews with leading women’s rights advocates, rabbis and experts. Narrated
by actress Mayim Bialik, it also offers women strategies for protecting themselves in such situations.
‘Love During Wartime’ (Sweden, 2010)
April 29, 4:45 p.m., at West Newton Cinema
In English, Hebrew, Arabic and German with English subtitles
Jasmin and Assi are newlyweds, but a future together seems
impossible for these real-life lovers: She’s a Jewish dancer
from Israel, he’s a Palestinian sculptor from Ramallah. Legal
restrictions and societal disapproval prevent them from living
together in Israel or the West Bank. The couple’s plan to move to Germany meets with similar roadblocks. Can their love survive? Gabriella Bier’s thoughtful, documentary is an intimate view into the
consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.