Washington Jewish Film Festival Enters 19th Year

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Parent Category: Film Festivals
Category: Previews
Published on Friday, 11 December 2009 07:05
Written by Jessica Gatdula
Since 1990, the Washington Jewish Film Festival has exhibited international cinema in celebrating the diversity of Jewish history, culture and experience. They aim to create dialogue with festival go-ers as unexpected stories are unearthed and Jewish stereotypes are debunked, which has earned them recognition as being one of the most respected Jewish Film festivals in North America.

The WJFF is expected to bring more than 7,000 people to Washington, D.C.'s Jewish Community Center for this year's installment of the festival, running from Dec. 3 through Dec. 13, 2009.

At the festival, new and award-winning films that chronicle Jewish life stories, issues and ideas that open minds will screen at the Washington DCJCC and venues all throughout the metropolitan area. Several films will also have premieres, including:

Mid-Atlantic Premiere at 7 p.m. on Dec. 5
Camera Obscura
directed by Maria Victoria Menis
At the end of the 19th century, an ugly duckling enters the world — and the New World — as a ship of immigrants docks in Buenos Aires. Shy and self-conscious, Gertrudis grows up in a colony of Argentinean Jews, keeping herself almost invisible, even hiding her face in photographs. After she is married off to an older, wealthy Jewish rancher, Gertrudis quietly raises a family until the arrival of a visionary French photographer jolts her into really seeing herself for the first time.

Washington, D.C. Premiere at 9:30 p.m. on Dec. 5
Cycles
directed by Cyril Gelblat
As the French title, literally "load-bearing walls," implies, the weight of life can threaten even the strongest foundations. Frida (Shulamit Adar) is an aging Holocaust survivor who increasingly confuses the past with the present. Facing middle age, her daughter (Miou-Miou) and son (Charles Berling) are losing their mother, while their own children slip away into adulthood.

Washington, D.C. Premiere at 12:15 p.m. on Dec. 6
Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist
directed by Andrew D. Cooke
Will Eisner began drawing comics in the 1930s, just as the art form was exploding in popularity and cultural relevance. Eisner's creations, combining art, literature and film, were some of the most original of all, and led to a successful career in what he called "sequential art," the forerunner of today's graphic novels. His gritty crime fighter series, The Spirit, incorporated film noir aspects with elements of the Jewish experience and the fight against anti-Semitism.

East Coast Premiere at 5:45 p.m. on Dec. 6
Broken Promise
directed by Jiri Chumsky
Based on the remarkable true story of Martin Friedmann, born in 1926 in Western Slovakia. On the eve of WWII, as his bar mitzvah approaches, young Martin's carefree life of soccer playing and boyish idleness in his small town is abruptly changed. He narrowly escapes deportation to a concentration camp partly thanks to his soccer skills and primarily thanks to luck and a string of unlikely coincidences.

Washington, D.C. Premiere at 8:15 p.m. on Dec. 6
Ajami
directed by Scandar Copti
Set on the mean streets of Jaffa's Ajami neighborhood, this compelling crime drama reveals the complexities of life and relationships in a melting pot of cultures. Stories are intertwined: a sensitive young boy and his brother live in fear of clan retaliation; a naive young Palestinian refugee works to save his mother's life; an affluent Palestinian dreams of a future with his Jewish girlfriend; a Jewish policeman searches for his missing brother. Human values, not politics, dominate the lives of people who want the same things, but rarely are able to overcome conflicting views among Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Washington, D.C. Premiere at 7 p.m. on Dec. 7
The Girl on the Train
directed by Andre Techine
Jeanne (Emilie Dequenne) lives in the suburbs of Paris with her mother Louise (Catherine Deneuve), and spends her days halfheartedly looking for work. When Louise finds a help wanted ad on the internet, she believes that fate has intervened, and moves to get her daughter a job with a famous attorney she knew in her youth. Jeanne's world and that of the Jewish attorney are light-years apart, but on a collision course due to an incredible lie she is about to tell--a lie that was at the heart of one of the most highly publicized and politicized news items in France in recent years.

Washington, D.C. Premiere at 9 p.m. on Dec. 7
Mary and Max
directed by Adam Elliot
Meet Mary Daisy Dinkle and Max Horowitz, two lonely souls reaching out for a friend in this quirky claymation tale. One day, Mary,a chubby young Australian girl with a crazy family, flips through a phone book and finds Max, an obese middle-aged New York Jew with Asperger's syndrome. The two become unlikely pen pals, sharing years of life's ups and downs.

North American Premiere at 7 p.m. on Dec. 9
Marcel Reich-Ranicki — Author of Himself
directed by Dror Zahavi
Marcel Reich-Ranicki is arguably the most well-known, influential and controversial critic of German literature today. Yet far more riveting than much of the fiction he reviews is his own life story, rooted in the darkest hours of the 20th century. Based on Reich-Ranicki's autobiography, this film retraces his remarkable life from his childhood in Poland to captivity in the Warsaw Ghetto, his escape and hiding with his wife until the end of the war, joining and then cutting ties with the Polish Communist Party, and, finally, his departure for West Germany in the late 1950s. Through it all, he never loses his love for German literature, leading to his career as a literary critic that he has now passionately pursued for over 50 years.

East Coast Premiere at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 12
Jump!
directed by Joshua Sinclair
Legendary photographer Philippe Halsman, who shot more covers of LIFE magazine than any other photographer, often captured the essence of celebrity personalities on film. His own personality, however, was defined by the tragic experiences. As re-told in the film, the young Halsman (Ben Silverstone) was on a hike with his father, Jewish dentist Morduch Halsman (Heinz Hoenig) in Austria in 1928. After a fall, his father dies. Halsman is put on trial for murder, defended by the Jewish lawyer Richard Pressburger (Patrick Swayze in one of his last roles). The trial causes an uproar all over Austria, and an increasingly anti-Semitic crowd judges the defendant.


Tickets are $10 general admission, and $9 for students and seniors. Advanced tickets for all screenings can be purchased only online at http://www.wjff.org or http://www.boxofficetickets.com.

More information is available at: http://www.afi.com/silver/new/nowplaying/2009/v6i6/wjff.aspx

Washington Jewish Film Festival
Dec. 3 to Dec. 13, 2009
Washington, D.C. Jewish Community Center
1529 16th Street Northwest
Washington, D.C. 20036
202-777-3231