Jewish life through the lens at film festival
THE Festival of Jewish Cinema's 2009 program kicks off this week on a decidedly light note with the quirky fish-out-of-water tale, A Matter of Size.
ADAM KAMIEN
THE Festival of Jewish Cinema’s 2009 program kicks off on a decidedly light note with the quirky fish-out-of-water tale, A Matter of Size.
From co-directors Sharon Maymon and Erez Tadmor, the film follows four overweight friends and their quest to find their place in the world.
Resigned to an endless regime of diets and fitness groups, the friends stumble upon the one place that accepts them for who they are -— the world of Israeli sumo wrestling.
The festival opens in Sydney on November 11 at Bondi Junction and in Melbourne on November 12 at ACMI Cinemas, Federation Square and the Classic Cinema, Elsternwick.
A Touch Away is one of Israel’s best-kept secrets. A riveting drama series produced for the small screen, the series follows two families in a religious suburb of Tel Aviv. One is ultra Orthodox and the other is a newly arrived secular Russian family.
The powerful, confronting eight-part series broke ratings records in Israel and will be screened in two parts as an encore presentation.
Acne is an offbeat coming-of-age tale about a bar mitzvah-age boy who is beginning to awaken sexually. Set in Montevideo, Uruguay, Rafa has lost his virginity, but has never kissed a girl.
His efforts to do so are thwarted by bad skin, an interfering Jewish community and his parents’ messy divorce. A charming outsider tale, Acne’s sexually charged plot will likely divide audiences, but it’s a romp not to be missed.
One of the picks of the festival is Adam Resurrected, starring stalwart Jeff Goldblum and based on the novel of the same name.
Goldblum plays Adam Stein, a former Berlin magician, who used his talents to survive the horrors of the Holocaust.
Forbidden love in the Orthodox community is examined in the contoversial feature Eyes Wide Open. The film focuses on the gay realtionship between a father of four and his younger shop assistant, and is sure to divide audiences.
French film Hello Goodbye stars two of the country’s iconic figures: Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant. A middle-upper-class French couple uproots and makes aliyah in the hope of re-discovering their Jewish identity.
The mid-life sea change swings into action after their son’s decision to marry out in this romantic comedy.
Other films to look out for include From My Father, a love story about the relationship between a Palestinian and an Israeli; Cycles, which looks at four different generations of a French Jewish family; and Slovakian Holocaust drama Broken Promise.
Being Jewish in France is a documentary about Jewish life in the European country from the Dreyfus Affair to the rise of anti-Semitism in modern France.
Other documentaries in the program include Inside Hana’s Suitcase, about a group of present-day Japanese students that unravel the mystery of a young Auschwitz inmate; Killing Kasztner, which looks at the controversial figure Israel Kasztner, who saved nearly 2000 Hungarian Jews during the Holocaust; and Operation Moses, which tells the story of the emergency evacuation of Ethiopian Jews to Israel during the 1970s and ’80s.
Australian filmmakers are also well represented in the documentary section of the festival. Leave the Stone’s Throw is a documentary by journalist Julie Szego, who details her struggle to accept the legacy of the Holocaust in her family, while Israeli documentaries A History of Israeli Cinema, Z32 and the Tunisia/France co-production The Wedding Song are also featured.
In the 20th anniversary retrospective section is From Hell to Hell, a film about the events leading up to the Kielce Pogrom in Poland in 1946, German political thriller The Giraffe (Mechugge) -— from the producers of Run Lola Run, Khroustaliov and My Car -— about Stalin’s infamous Doctor’s Plot to get rid of Jewish doctors.
Dutch film Left Luggage about a secular Jewish girl in Antwerp who takes a job with an Orthodox family and the brilliant Phyllis and Harold, a film about the family of artist Cindy Kleine, are also in the retrospective.
For more information, visit www.jewishfilmfestival.com.au.
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