The dates for the screenings are January 28 – March 4. (Every Wednesday). All movies will be screened at the Wesleyan University Center for Film Studies, at the Jeanine Basinger Center for Film Studies in the Goldsmith Family Cinema, 301 Washington Terrace, Middletown, CT at 8pm.
Free Admission. On site parking.
The Festival is organized by Dalit Katz, University Professor of Jewish Studies and Director of the Center for Jewish Studies at Wesleyan University. It is sponsored by the Ring Family, the Center for Jewish Studies, and co-sponsored by the College of Film and the Moving Image.
| NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE Halisa (January 28, 8:00 p.m.) Director’s Talk: Sophie Artus Directed by: Sophie Artus, 2024 Every day, Sarah cares for other people’s babies at the Children’s Health Center in Haifa’s impoverished, multi-ethnic Halisa neighborhood, but she also yearns for a child of her own. After two years of failed attempts, her desperate desire for motherhood collides with the struggles of a young mother, culminating in a risky decision with potentially devastating consequences. |
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| The Property (February 4, 8:00 p.m.) Speaker: Avner Shavit, Silverberg Assistant Professor of the Practice in Jewish Studies Directed by Dana Modan, 2024 In this romantic dramedy, Regina and her granddaughter Mika embark on a journey to Poland to reclaim their family property seized during World War II, but their quest quickly unravels. Regina unexpectedly decides to abandon the mission entirely, leaving Mika lost and confused. To complicate matters further, an irritating distant relative reappears at every turn. Just as Mika finds herself falling for a charming tour guide, Regina seizes the opportunity to pursue her own hidden agenda: finding her long-lost love, from whom she was separated seventy years ago. |
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| CONNECTICUT PREMIERE Reading Lolita in Tehran (February 11, 8:00 p.m.) Based on a book by Azar Nafasi Director’s Talk: Eran Riklis Directed by Eran Riklis, 2024 Azar Nafisi, a former professor at Tehran University, secretly gathers seven of her most committed female students to read forbidden western classics. As fundamentalists seize control, the women remove their veils, speak about their intimate hopes, loves and disappointments, their femininity and their search for a place in an increasingly oppressive society. By reading Lolita in Tehran, they celebrate the liberating power of literature in revolutionary Iran and form their own future. |
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| NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE Nandauri (February 18, 8:00 p.m.) Speaker: Taped Interview with film director, Eli Tsicko, and Avner Shavit Directed by Eti Tsicko, 2025 In the dead of night, a strange woman arrives in a forgotten village in northern Georgia. Marina, an Israeli lawyer who has spent her life in denial about her past and identity, returns to Georgia to bring back to Israel an 11-year-old boy who was abandoned by his mother Nino as a baby. She meets Dato (Nino’s brother) who has cared for the boy his entire life. Despite the hostility she arouses in him, he agrees to help her. The journey of Dato and Marina, two strangers, melts the walls of alienation and anger and changes their perspective on the world and themselves. |
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| Matchmaking (February 25, 8:00 p.m.) Speaker: Isaac Zablocki, Director of film programs at the Marlene Meyerson JCC Manhattan Directed by Erez Tadmor, 2022 Moti Bernstein is the son every mother wants, a student every Rabbi loves to teach, the ideal Yeshiva study mate, the perfect match for every bride. He has it all: a good family, a brilliant mind, and he is not bad looking either. In search of a wife, he will meet the best girls in the Jewish orthodox world but will fall for the one girl he can never have. The only one he wants. Against everything he knows and every value he holds dear, Moti will be forced to go out on a limb in the most unexpected and unusual of ways. All that remains is to see who will win. The system or the inner voice. |
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| NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE Kugel (March 4, 8:00 p.m.) Screening of the first two episdoes Speaker: Dalit Katz, Director, Center for Jewish Studies Creator and Writer: Yehonatan Indursky, 2025 The series, based in Belgium ultra-orthodox neighbourhood, focuses on Nuchem and his young daughter, Libi, who aspires to be a successful writer as well as find a suitable match. Nuchem is a charming jewellery dealer, unafraid of bending the rules to make a sale. When his wife, Yides, finally tires of his swindling and says she wants a divorce, their family life is thrown into disarray. Nuchem spends his days trying to save his marriage and achieve his dream of one day being a mogul, and his nights courting Pnina Baumbach, a recently widowed woman who inherited a restaurant that specializes in fine Jerusalem-style noodle kugels. Throughout the series, Nuchem must learn to balance his ambition in business alongside the needs of the three women in his life. The series celebrates how every person is as complex, individual, surprising, and addictive as a slice of delicious kugel. |
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