A scene from The Debt. By Hap Erstein
At a time when film festivals are either shrinking or simply disappearing, the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival is expanding as it turns 21.
The annual celebration of Jewish culture on celluloid from around the world, a program of the Jewish Community Center of the Greater Palm Beaches, unspools beginning this evening, Dec. 1, with 34 films from 12 different countries, in four sites around the county – mainstay locations Cobb Downtown in Palm Beach Gardens and Regal Delray Beach 18, plus two new western outposts at Regal Royal Palm Beach and Movies of Delray.
Ask artistic director Karen Davis to explain the festival’s longevity and she will point to its audience. “I think that they appreciate quality film programming. One reason for that – the primary reason for that – is that they rarely get it,” she says. “There are fewer and fewer art movies, fewer and fewer art and independent films and I think that we really make up a substantial gap in the taste of cultured film lovers.”
(Full disclosure: For the first time, the festival has a “reviewer in residence,” a title I will be holding. At several screenings, I will be offering my observations and opinions, fielding audience questions and leading post-showing discussions.)
The festival leads off with two screenings of Anita, an involving tale of a young Jewish woman with Down syndrome, separated from her family after a 1994 terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires.
“When I saw it, I fell in love with it, as did the screening committee,” explains Davis. “Choosing an opening night film is always a little problematic. You want a crowd-pleaser, but you don’t want fluff. You don’t want a really sad movie. While this move deals with a serious subject and treats it seriously, I think it paints a very, very upbeat, optimistic picture of society. And I thought the acting and the direction were phenomenal and my screening committee agreed.”
Many, if not most, of the films in the festival are unlikely to gain American distribution, so their exposure during the festival – Dec. 1 - 12 – will be the only opportunity to see them locally. Two exceptions feature Oscar winners Helen Mirren and Dustin Hoffman.
Mirren stars in The Debt (Dec. 10, Regal Delray 18), playing a Mossad agent assigned to capture Nazi war criminals decades earlier, now reliving the trauma of those times and the toll they took on her.
Scheduled for commercial release by Miramax Films early in 2011, the thriller “is a U.S. version of an Israeli film that was made with Gila Almagor about three years ago,” notes Davis. Originally, the film was supposed to be released in December, but then it was rescheduled. But because of the original release date, that’s why they were eager to have the film festival launch it.”
A scene from Jews and Baseball.Hoffman narrates a documentary with plenty of built-in appeal, Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (Dec, 7, Regal Delray 18; Dec. 12, Cobb Downtown). “It’s a wonderful film, better than ‘The Hank Greenberg Story’ because it has a broader historical scope and perspective. Did you know that the first Jewish baseball players began playing in the late 19th century?,” asks Davis. “I’m not a sports fan, but there was just something so engaging about this film.”
The opening night of the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival coincides with the beginning of Hanukkah. As Davis explains, “We chose December for the festival, because back in its early days, there was very little here for Jews because the month was so dominated by Christmas. So the Jewish Arts Foundation, which began the festival, decided to offer it as sort of a Hanukkah gift to the Jewish community. And we do have people buy tickets as Hanukkah gifts. Most of all, they buy the passes to gift themselves.”
Davis and her screening committee are content to bring to the area the best films from around the globe on Jewish subjects. But invariably, by serendipity, common themes tend to emerge from their choices.
“There are several small themes. One is the idea of forbidden or thwarted love. Three films fall into that category – ‘Oh, What a Mess,’ ‘He’s My Girl,’ and ‘Adam’s Wall.’ Then there’s a broader theme, which has to do with the conflict between assimilation and identity. Both ‘Bridge Over Wadi’ and ‘World Class Kids,’ as well as ‘Lone Samaritan’ and ‘Sayed Kashua’ deal with issues of multi-culturalism in Israel, how to be an Israeli citizen and still maintain your character, your identity.
“There’s a sub-theme which I call ‘gutsy women.’ One of them is ‘Berlin ’36,’ which is about the women Olympic high jumper. The other is ‘Sixty in the City,’ a documentary about the 60-year-old filmmaker who documents her experiences with on-line dating. ‘Ahead of Time,’ a terrific documentary about the life of Ruth Gruber.”
Asked to single out five films that are must-sees – a request that Davis hates – she nonetheless gives in and agrees to cooperate. “I would say ‘The Matchmaker,’ because it’s an outstanding Israeli film that covers a historical period of time – the early ’50s – that is not normally covered in Israel cinema.
“I would say ‘The Round Up,’ a French film that deals with the French round-up of Jews. They were sent to this cycling ring, the Vel d’Hiv, in a sweltering summer. It was sort of like the situation after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. And then the Jews were all put on trains and sent to work camps and death camps.
“I would say ‘Saviors in the Night’ is another outstanding film. Of course ‘Jews and Baseball,’ but that doesn’t need any publicity. People will just see the title and come. And we have a very sweet historical drama called ‘Gei-Oni (Valley of Fortitude)’, about the founding of an Israeli town called Rosh Pina in the 19th century. That’s five, but there are so many more good films in this festival, it’s really unfair to ask me to choose.”
THE 21ST ANNUAL PALM BEACH JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL, Dec. 1-12. Tickets: $8-$10, www.pbjff.org.
Alejandra Manzo in Anita.Anita (Cobb Downtown, Dec. 1, 7:20 p.m.; Regal Delray 18, Dec. 2, 7:20 p.m.) – In a simple apartment in Buenos Aires, Dora (played by Oscar-nominated Norma Aleandro of Gaby: A True Story) lives with her daughter Anita (the remarkable Alejandra Manzo), who has Down syndrome. Anita’s life revolves around her endlessly patient mother, as well as her brother Ariel, who arrives with his wife for his ritual Sunday visit, but is too preoccupied with the World Cup soccer match to take Anita on a promised trip to the zoo.
That casual neglect comes back to haunt Ariel, for when Dora leaves Anita alone in the family stationery store to visit a Jewish charity to collect some subsidy money, a terrorist bomb explodes, leaving an uncomprehending, but trusting Anita to wander the streets in search of food and shelter. The city becomes one of the characters, as she receives help from unexpected sources, like a grizzled rummy and an Asian immigrant family that are each disarmed by this pudgy-faced child-woman.
The film’s success hinges on the role of Anita and Manzo gives an extraordinary, natural performance calculated to melt hearts. Director-writer Marcos Carnevale guides the film with assurance, capturing the chaos following the urban bombing, but never straying far from a close-up of Manzo.
Bat-el Papura and Tuval Shafir in The Matchmaker.The Matchmaker (Cobb Downtown, Dec. 4, 7:20 p.m.) – Move over, Dolly Gallagher Levi. Make way for Yankele Bride, the title character in director Avi Nesher’s sweet memory tale of a youth named Arik Burstein who comes of age in Haifa, circa 1968, under the tutelage of the pragmatic, professional romantic who dedicates himself to matching up clients with “what they need, not what they want.”
The world that opens itself to Arik (Tuval Shafir) is populated with highly colorful characters. Foremost is Yankele, whose scarred face suggests a mysterious, dark past, yet as played by Israeli stand-up comic Adir Mller, he is gentle and brimming with wry wisdom. There’s alluring blonde Clara (Maya Dagan), who assists Yankele in preparing his clients for romance that they tend to fall madly in love with her instead of the intended match. One such eager bride is the sassy dwarf Sylvia (delicately featured, diminutive Bat-el Papura), the proprietress of a movie theater within Haifa’s red light district.
While these lovelorn adults sort out their stunted emotions, Arik is coming under the spell of a teenager vixen named Tamara (Neta Porat), who knows how to string the defenseless lad along. Deftly set against the turmoil of the outside world, this fable-like saga walks a tricky tightrope between sentiment and sentimentality.