Spring 2013

 The film is directed by Ami Drozd and takes place in Poland in the 1960’s. The film tells the story of a ten year old Tadek and his older brother who are part of a neo Nazi gang. Following the arrest of the boys by the local police, their mother, who concealed her Jewish identity, tells her younger son that they are about to sail to Australia, the land of his dreams, when in reality they are to sail to Israel. The film is based on the filmmaker’s own experience.

Speaker: Professor Magda Teter, Jeremy Zwelling Professor of Jewish Studies, Wesleyan University.

 This film takes place in British controlled Palestine in 1944. Maya, deserted by her parents, is brought to an orphanage for Jewish girls. The appearance of Maya evokes within the director of the orphanage his past love affair with her mother, while Maya develops affection for one of the anti-British resistance fighters who is a fiancé of anther orphanage worker. The personal dramas occur at the time  that the other girls and workers in the orphanage are awaiting a personal and national liberation. The film is based on a novel by Rachel Eytan, a winner of the prestigious Brenner Prize.

Speaker: Professor Sami Berdugo, Visiting Professor, Wesleyan University.

Off White Lies which was just screened at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York. Libby who has been living with her mother in the States for years is sent to live with her dad in Israel. She arrives when the second Lebanon war starts. Libby discovers that her lively and eccentric dad is a homeless man who  has devised a plan to pose as a refugee from the bombarded Northern region in order to find a home within a wealthy family in Jerusalem. Now Libby has to deal with her false identity as well as her relation with her father.

Speaker: Professor Marc Longenecker, Visiting Instructor in Film Studies, Wesleyan University.

“This is the story of the loves, poems and fears of the woman who chose Hebrew and Hebrew chose her.” The movie uses five acts of animation, interviews and footage as well as original music to tell the story of the beloved and yet very much enigmatic life of the poet, Lea Goldberg.

Speaker Sami Berdudo, Visiting Professor, Wesleyan University.

2011 academy nominated film, Footnote, written and directed by Joseph Cedar will be screened. Set within the academic setting of the  Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the film follows the complicated relation between Eliezer and Uriel, a father and son, who are also rival professors in Talmudic Studies. The relation between them reaches to a new peak when they find out that Eliezer will be lauded for his work.

Speaker: Elisha Russ-Fisbane, Assistant Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University.

Mabul , will conclude the festival. The film  follows the complicated life of Yoni, a smart but underdeveloped boy, who is preparing for his Bar Mitzvah. Yoni has to deal with bullying in school, uncommunicative parents and an older autistic brother who comes home right before the ceremony. Yoni is left to deal on his own with a brother he has not seen in ten years and who has become obsessed with Yoni’s Torah excerpt about Noah.

Speaker: Laura Blum, film critic.