World of Jewish Flicks – June

June is busting out all over with lots of activity in the World of Jewish Flicks.

Although June is usually a slow month for Jewish Film Festival activity, I can report that at least two festivals are being held in major cities of North America.

The first is the Israeli Film Festival in Ottawa (www.ottawa.mfa.gov.il).  This has become an annual event in Canada’s capital city and will feature four Israeli films between June 4 and 28. These include the recent Israeli feature films Seven Days (Shiva), about a large family getting together to mourn the passing of its patriarch and the exciting thriller The Debt, which features Gila Almagor, Israel’s leading actress. In addition the festival will screen the classics Aviva My Love and The Schwartz Dynasty.

The Israel Film Festival in the United States (www.israelfilmfestival.com) has also kicked off its tour of American cities. Each year The Israeli Film Festival runs a program of some 30 films in Los Angeles, New York and Miami. The Los Angeles leg of the festival runs June 3-18 and is highlighting such new features as Adam Resurrected, a film about a mentally disturbed Holocaust survivor; Eli & Ben, about the relationship between a father and son; Out of the Blue, a slap stick comedy featuring Israeli megastar, Moshe Ivgy; and some 9 or 10 other feature films. 

The Israeli Film Festival also premieres a number of excellent documentaries, Israeli television series and several student shorts.

All in all, the Israeli Film Festival offers a unique and eclectic collection of films from the burgeoning Israeli film industry. The Festival will be visiting New York in October and Miami in December.

June also marks the release of a number of exciting films on DVD. The biggest release is a film that appeared on screens all over the country in the early months of this year. Defiance, the true story of the Bielski brothers who fled their hometown and sought sanctuary in the thick forests of Belurus in order to survive the mass killings of the Nazis during World War II.  Not only did the Bielskis live through the difficult times, but they rescued over 1,000 other Jews. 

Defiance is one of the few films to focus on Jews who joined the partisans during the Holocaust and fought back against the Nazis. Unfortunately these stories have not received their due until this recent film, and the DVD is now available to everyone.

A good campanion piece to Defiance is the documentary The Bielski Brothers, which includes interviews with the actual participants of the resistance to the Nazis. You can see the real Bielskis and listen to their stories directly from the source.

Also being re-released this month is The Diary of Anne Frank 50th Anniversary Edition and the award-winning Israeli film Waltz With Bashir, which won the Golden Globe for best Foreign Film and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category.

Those of you into basketball might want to look for The First Basket, the story of the Jewish origins of modern basketball. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, many of the best players playing professional basketball were Jewish and they made a huge contribution to the league that eventually became the National Basketball Association. 

So it looks like this will be a busy month in the World of Jewish Flicks.  Enjoy the festivals and go out and get copies of some of the great films being released on DVD.

Larry Anklewicz is the Programme Coordinator for the Toronto Jewish Film
Festival, He has written and lectured on Jewish films for many years and is the author of  A Guide to Jewish Films on Video.