Charlotte Jewish Film Festival, March 4-14 at various venues across town
Individual Ticket Price Range: Free* to $18** (*Special showings, see schedule; **Opening Night includes Dessert Reception)
Festival Pass: $64.00
While the likelihood of Charlotte overtaking Cannes as a premier Film Festival destination is remote, area movie buffs are licking their chops nonetheless for ten days of fine films come March; that is, when the Charlotte Jewish Film Festival kicks off with a compact but eclectic and inviting selection of cinema in a format that offers one huge advantage the big festivals typically don’t have: accessibility.
Reaching out to the "everyman filmgoer" in the Queen City is a primary objective of the sixth annual Charlotte Jewish Film Festival. Those lucky enough to attend all or a portion of the ten-day event in early March will be rewarded with a carefully crafted palate of films that go well beyond entertaining. You may just find yourself provoked into discussion with your friends and neighbors or perhaps even engaged in critical reflection on your own values and beliefs.
Film festivals are offered with the idea that the assemblage should equal considerably more than the sum of their individual parts. Often festival-goers will be treated to pre- or post-film discussions with writers, directors, actors or those otherwise associated with the film. Technique, back-story, historical information and quirky little-known details serve to enrich the festival-going experience. Frequent festival attendees know that much of their reward comes outside of the screenings of undiscovered and little-known films destined for both greatness and obscurity. Those opportunities will be plentiful at Charlotte’s Jewish Film Festival.
The festival’s organizers have seized the notion of giving the audience more than just nine intriguing and captivating films offered in eleven separate screenings across the metro area. For their sixth and most ambitious production to date, festival director Jodi Werner Greenwald emphasizes that the organizers are working hard to pull together an event that offered something for everyone.
One example of a diverse offering is an interfaith outreach discussion following the film Arranged (scheduled for Monday, March 8th at the Levine Jewish Community Center, 7:00 pm). The film and discussion are co-sponsored by the Levine Jewish Community Center and Mecklenburg Ministries and is one of two films that will be offered free of charge.
The film offers a fascinating glimpse into the amazingly similar worlds of two first year teachers in Brooklyn, one an Orthodox Jew, the other a Muslim woman. Both are products of strong parochial upbringing that call for arranged marriage and strict adherence to custom and tradition. Shot in just seventeen days during a New York City heat wave, this 2007 film is loosely based on the experiences of Executive Producer Yuta Silverman, an Orthodox Jew who befriended a Pakistani Muslim woman through the public schools in Brooklyn. Funny, tender, beautifully scripted and cast, Arranged will serve as an ideal catalyst for the interfaith discussion to follow.
The other free screening extends the festival’s traditional appeal and reaches out to children and the young-at-heart through the film His People (scheduled for Tuesday March 9th at 7:00 pm.) Sponsored by the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, this film will be shown at ImaginOn. His People was made in 1925 and shares a rarely seen glimpse of immigrant life in America at the turn of century as an impoverished pushcart merchant struggles to maintain tradition and heritage with his two young sons. This full length feature film will be accompanied by local ragtime pianist, Ethan Uslan and Charlotte Symphony clarinetist and klezmer aficionado, Gene Kavadlo.
The mission of the festival is to illuminate global Jewish experiences through film. The organizers have selected films that achieve this goal while also underscoring universal themes that resonate with Jews and non-Jews alike.
What exactly is it that makes a film Jewish? “It is usually more than Jews were involved in the production of the film,” says Festival film curator Debby Block. “We are looking to offer films that speak to the Jewish experience and touch on that in one way or another. Assembling a variety of films that will have broad appeal means that we can’t focus too heavily on documentaries or political films or even holocaust films. Like other cultures and people, the Jewish people have a complex range of experiences to draw from.”
The lightest and perhaps most humorous film of the Festival opens the event on March 6th, complete with a dessert reception. A Matter of Size was nominated for thirteen Israeli Film Academy Awards and won three, including Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. A Matter of Size is an example of a great film that would likely never have been made by Hollywood for an American audience.
On the surface, the plot borders on the absurd. Four overweight men struggling with jobs, relationships and their own identity come together to form a sumo wrestling club. They’re coached by a Japanese Jew in Israel. The brilliant casting and superb performances take a very clever script and infuse it with emotion, humor, and believability. The film is a gem with special credit going to Itzik Cohen, whose portrayal of the coming-of-age mama’s boy Herzl is an understated triumph. There’s no animation or 3D, no violence or explosions, and only brief, teasing sexual innuendo to titillate. It works because it is smart, funny and true to life with a portrayal of Jewish life that is all too familiar for members of the faith and insightful for outsiders.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is a film that is brutally difficult-to-watch and charged with the politics and emotion of the current Israeli/Arab conflict. One can sense from the opening credits and first few minutes that the painful aching conclusion is all but inevitable. As grueling and tough as the subject matter is, For My Father is perhaps the most compelling and arguably the one "must-see" amongst all offerings in the festival. The film portrays a conflicted young Palestinian man who is recruited to be a suicide bomber. Fate and good and bad fortune put him in circumstances where he befriends his enemies. Never preachy or allegorical, the movie takes you on a rollercoaster ride of tension as it shows up close and very personal how people find themselves in the midst of chaotic situations not of their own doing. Block said the film just missed last year’s selection but was so memorable her committee decided to place it on this year’s roster.
The Debt takes a plausible plot and stretches it just beyond its limit in a taut psychological thriller that features nonstop action and chilling cinematography. Thirty-five years after they allegedly killed a Nazi war criminal, three Israeli secret agents are reassembled to finish some undone business. Nominated for four Israeli Film Academy Awards, The Debt perhaps bites off a bit more than it can chew in expecting its audience to be on the edge of their seat for ninety percent of the film, only to be disappointed in the hasty and ill packaged conclusion. Too bad, as the acting is top notch and the look of the film sets an appropriate mood. The back-and-forth flashback sequences lend depth to the three agents, their conflicts, and struggle and provide the obligatory evil dimension to their mutual adversary.
As with most festivals, it can be difficult to see every film. Do try to take in more than one as these movies are very unlikely to make it to the Charlotte market. The festival has grown from one film and one showing in 2004 to nine films and eleven showings this year. The festival organizers have done a superb job of selecting a variety of venues across our community making catching a flick or three fairly easy. Their package pricing of $64.00 (individual performance tickets are also available) will get filmgoers into every performance and save over $30.00.
___
This article was made possible by a grant from the Arts & Science Council.