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The Maine Jewish Film Festival is a non-profit organization whose
mission is to provide a forum
for the presentation of films to enrich, educate and entertain a
diverse community about the Jewish experience.
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Schedule
2008
March 29th - Saturday |
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5:30 - Opening Night Party
Greenhut Galleries, 146 Middle Street
Join us for appetizers
and drinks. $25.00 for Opening Night Party and film. |
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8:00 - My Mexican
Shivah
Nickelodeon Cinemas, 1 Temple Street, Portland
Director: Alejandro Springall
Country: Mexico / USA, 2007 - Feature
Duration: 98 min.
Language: Hebrew / Spanish / Yiddish / English
Set in Polanco, a Jewish quarter of Mexico City, "My
Mexican Shivah" is a dramatic comedy about how the death
of a man results in the celebration of his life. According
to Jewish belief, from the moment a Jew is born, he or she
is accompanied by two angels: an angel of light and an angel
of darkness. When Moishe Tartakovsky, patriarch of his family,
dies of a heart attack, he leaves behind a complicated web
of secrets and relationships that become untangled over the
course of his seven-day shivah. Which angel will win the
battle for Moishe's soul? If the shivah reveals anything,
it's that Moishe's family and friends loved him with all
his flaws and mystery- and most of all his spirit. American
director John Sayles serves as Executive Producer. |
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1:30 - Women Filmmakers Forum
Arranged
Portland Museum of Art, Seven Congress Square,
Portland
Directors: Diane Crespo & Stefan C. Shaefer
Country: USA 2007 - Feature
Duration: 90 min.
Language: English
Two young women — one an Orthodox Jew, the other Muslim — meet and
become friends as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. Over the
course of the year they learn they share much in common, not least of which is
that they are both going through arranged marriages. A wonderful little comedy
with performances so natural it might be mistaken it for a documentary. For anyone
interested in living in a globalized world.
* Grand Chameleon Award & Best Narrative Feature, Brooklyn
International Film Festival
Yuta Silverman- Executive Producer, Writer (Story) |
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4:00 - Youth Program
Mechina: A Preparation
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Maital Guttman
Country: Israel and the United States, 2007 - Documentary
Duration: 48 min.
Language: English
Maital feels no different from her cousin Amitai. They both enjoy music and going
to the beach. They both want to work for peace. When they were eighteen, they
both worried about graduating from high school and making plans for the future.
The difference? At eighteen, Maital worried about what college she would attend,
while Amitai worried about what unit he would enter in the Israeli Defense Force.
Mechina: A Preparation is Maital's journey to discover what it means to be eighteen
in Israel.
Free to youth 18 years and younger. Call 207.831.7465 to reserve seats. Non-reserved
seating is first come first serve. |
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7:00 - Three Mothers
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Dina Zvi-Riklis
Country: Israel released 2006 - Feature
Duration: 106 min.
Language: Hebrew / French / Arabic w/ subtitles
Inspired by director Dina Zvi-Riklis’ real-life family,
the film traces the lives and loves of Egyptian-Jewish triplet
girls from infancy—when they are blessed by King Farouk
of Egypt to their adult lives in Israeli. As Rucha, the daughter
of one of the triplets, documents each of the sisters lives,
stories contradict one another, and the family’s’ past
is revealed.
* Best Cinematography and Costumes at the 2006 Israeli Academy
Awards |
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12:30- Clara Lemlich A Strike
Leader's Diary
McArthur Public Library, 270 Main Street, Biddeford
Country: USA released 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 51 min.
Language: English / Yiddish
Director: Alex Szalat
Co-sponsored with McArthur Library – Biddeford
Lemlich’s success as a union organizer, which included numerous arrests
and beatings by strikebreakers, eventually led to her election to the executive
board of the International Ladies Garment Workers' Union. Her story is movingly
recounted through interviews with her daughter and grandchildren, dramatic readings
from her diary, family photos and archival footage, strike songs in Yiddish,
an interview with labor historian Alice Kessler-Harris, a visit to the Lower
East Side Tenement Museum, and excerpts from silent films of the era.
Discussion to follow film
* Free Screening |
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LGBT Film Project
Keep Not Silent - Ortho-Dykes
Two Screenings: 5:30 and 8:00 with 7:00 film
reception. Reception admission requires
a film ticket.
SPACE, 538 Congress Street, Portland
Country: USA, 2004 - Documentary
Duration: 52 min.
Language: Hebrew, subtitled
Director: Ilil Alexander
Director Ilil Alexander’s debut film boldly documents the clandestine struggle
of three remarkable lesbians within their beloved Orthodox Jewish communities
in Jerusalem. All three women are piously committed to their faith and their
families. Instead of walking away from a religious community, whose leaders insist
that God did not create people with homosexual “tendencies” that
cannot be overcome; each of these women chooses a unique approach to express
both her sexual and religious identities.
* Winner of the Israeli Oscar for Best Documentary
In person: Director, Ilil Alexander |
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7:00 - The Front (1976)
Feature
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Country: USA, 1976 - Feature
Duration: 90 min.
Language: English
Director: Martin Ritt
The Front is a tragic comedy about McCarthy blacklisting that may resonant more
today than when first released in 1976. Woody Allen plays a cashier who poses
as a writer for a group of blacklisted television writers. All goes well until
he is called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and he is forced
to decide where his loyalties lie. Director Martin Ritt, star Zero Mostel, screenwriter
Walter Bernstein, and many other talents involved with The Front were real-life
victims of the Hollywood blacklist.
After film discussion facilitated by Emanuel Margolis Ph.D. & J.D., a
constitutional law and civil rights attorney. |
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Senior Luncheon and Matinee
Maine Historical Society 489 Congress Street, Portland
12:00 - Free Luncheon
Limited to first sixty seniors 65 and older who reserve.
Call 207.831.7495 to secure a reservation.
Screening free
for patrons 65 and older. General audience welcome at regular
ticket prices. All seats require a ticket. |
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1:30
- Souvenirs
Maine Historical Society, 489 Congress Street, Portland
Country: Israel, 2006 - Documentary
Duration: 75 min.
Language: Hebrew / English
Director: Shahar Cohen
Filmmaker Shahar Cohen and his father Sleiman—an 82-year-old Yemeni-Israeli—take
to the road, following Sleiman’s WWII path through Europe with the Jewish
Brigade. Shahar hopes they discover a “souvenir”—that is, his
father’s offspring by a wartime Dutch girlfriend. This film is funny, unpredictable
and unforgettable. The road trip creates a bond between the two men they had
not experienced before as father and son.
* Winner of the Audience Award at New York’s Tribeca
Film Festival |
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5:00 - At Home In Utopia
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Michal Goldman
Country: USA released 2008 - Documentary
Duration: 57 min.
Language: English / Yiddish w/ subtitles
Director Michal Goldman traces the engaging history of the United Workers Cooperative
Colony—a.k.a. “The Coops”—one of four cooperative apartments
built in the Bronx in the 1920s by visionary Jewish garment workers. At Home
in Utopia follows the life of this cooperative across two generations into the
1950s. The arc of the story begins within a community that was primarily – and
proudly – Eastern European Jewish. But by the story’s end, the leaders
of the Coops had begun to move their “house” toward racial integration.
This is a fascinating look at a story not well known and told by former tenants
whose lives were forever altered by their time in The Coops. |
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7:00 - Souvenirs
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Country: Israel, 2006 - Documentary
Duration: 75 min.
Language: Hebrew / English
Director: Shahar Cohen
Filmmaker Shahar Cohen and his father Sleiman—an 82-year-old Yemeni-Israeli—take
to the road, following Sleiman’s WWII path through Europe with the Jewish
Brigade. Shahar hopes they discover a “souvenir”—that is, his
father’s offspring by a wartime Dutch girlfriend. Funny, unpredictable
and unforgettable. The somewhat arduous, often humorous road trip uncovers unexpected
connections between the two men. The road trip frees father and son of the usual
context of their relationship, forcing them to redefine it.
* Winner of the Audience Award at New York’s Tribeca
Film Festival |
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6:00 - The Bubble
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Country: Israel, 2007 - Feature
Duration: 90 min.
Language: Hebrew
Director: Eytan Fox
Israeli twenty-somethings share a flat in Tel Aviv's hip district, Shenkin Street.
They love their carefree lives inside Tel Aviv's "bubble," where the
strains of a violent outside world are kept at bay. Then Noam, a young Israeli
man meets Ashraf, a young Palestinian man and they begin an affair. Ashraf cannot
legally work or reside in Tel Aviv. Seeing Ashraf's situation as a chance to
act on their principles of peaceful coexistence, the three roommates unite to
bring Ashraf into the bubble. How their ideals run headlong into tragic realities
forms the core tension in this smart, keenly felt drama. (Mature themes, sexually
explicit) |
|
7:30 - Clara Lemlich A Strike Leader's
Diary
Teamsters Local 340, 144 Thadeus Street, South Portland
Country: USA released 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 51 min.
Language: English / Yiddish
Director: Alex Szalat
Lemlich’s success as a union organizer, which included
numerous arrests and beatings by strikebreakers, eventually
led to her election to the executive board of the International
Ladies Garment Workers' Union. Her story is movingly recounted
through interviews with her daughter and grandchildren, dramatic
readings from her diary, family photos and archival footage,
strike songs in Yiddish, an interview with labor historian
Alice Kessler-Harris, a visit to the Lower East Side Tenement
Museum, and excerpts from silent films of the era.
After film discussion facilitated by Peter Kellman, President
of the Southern Maine Labor Council
* Free Screening |
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8:15 - Orthodox Stance
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Jason Hutt
Country: USA released 2007 - Documentary
Duration: 82 min.
Language: English
w/ subtitles
Dmitriy Salita is a Russian immigrant, undefeated professional prizefighter and
a religious Jew. ORTHODOX STANCE portrays Dmitriy's maturation in each
of these disparate communities, and the seemingly incompatible cultures and characters
working together to support his rare and remarkable devotion to both Orthodox
Judaism and the pursuit of a professional boxing title. In the end the
film is about more than just boxing and religion, but about a young man's search
for meaning in life.
In person: Director, Jason Hutt |
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6:00 - Young, Jewish, and Left
SPACE, 538 Congress Street, Portland
Country: USA released 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 65 min.
Language: English
Director: Konnie Chameides
Weaves gay culture, Jewish Arab history, secular Yiddishkeit, anti-racist analysis,
and religious/spiritual traditions into a multi-layered tapestry of Leftist politics.
Personal experiences from many of today’s leading Jewish activists reframe
the possibilities of Jewish identity. It presents a fresh and constructive take
on race, spirituality, Zionism, queerness, resistance, justice, and liberation.
* Best Documentary, ARPA International Film Festival
In person: Director, Konnie Chameides |
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6:00 - A Slim Peace
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Country: UK, 2007 - Documentary
Duration: 70 min.
Language: Hebrew
Director: Yael Luttwak
When 14 women—Israelis, Palestinians, Bedouin Arabs, and American settlers
in the West Bank—are brought together with the shared goal of losing weight,
they find out they have far more in common than they ever would have imagined.
A Slim Peace takes a revealing look at the universal struggle for acceptance,
understanding and personal transformation in a land of intractable conflict. |
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8:00 - At Home in Utopia
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Michal Goldman
Country: USA released 2008
Duration: 57 min.
Language: English / Yiddish
w/ subtitles
Director Michal Goldman traces the engaging history of the United Workers Cooperative
Colony—a.k.a. “The Coops”—one of four cooperative apartments
built in the Bronx in the 1920s by visionary Jewish garment workers. At Home
in Utopia follows the life of this cooperative across two generations into the
1950s. The arc of the story begins within a community that was primarily – and
proudly – Eastern European Jewish. But by the story’s end, the leaders
of the Coops had begun to move their “house” toward racial integration.
This is a fascinating look at a story not well known and told by former tenants
whose lives were forever altered by their time in The Coops.
In person: Director, Michal Goldman |
 |
12:00 to 3:30 pm - Lefty Shorts
Film Forum
University of Southern Maine, 96 Falmouth Street
Gerald E. Talbot Lecture Hall
They Were Not Silent (Roland Millman, 1998, 30 min)
Is the story of the anti-Nazi and rescue activities of the American Jewish labor
movement, including their aid to the Underground fighters of the ghettoes of
East Europe, and their assistance to Holocaust survivors in refugee camps across
the globe. The film features rare archival footage and photos, plus interviews
with labor veterans, Holocaust survivors and scholars. |
 |
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg (work
in progress, 2007, 18 min)
Aviva Kempner looks at the life and career of Gertrude Berg, the creator, writer
and star of The Goldberg’s, a popular 1930s radio show that was subsequently
a weekly TV program. Berg pioneered the family-based sitcom format that has proven
to be television's most durable and popular genre. More remarkably, she did it
by presenting America with an outwardly Jewish family that wore its immigrant
heritage on its sleeve. The film also examines the stand Berg took against McCarthyism
when she refused to fire her long-time co-star Philip Loeb - who resigned to
prevent the cancellation of the show and later committed suicide. |
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BREAD, AND ROSES TOO:
Celebrating The Legacy of Moe Foner (Directors,
George Stoney and Lora Hays, 2008, 12 min) excerpts from
a work-in-progress Bread, And Roses Too is the inspiring
story of Jewish labor leader Moe Foner and the arts and
culture program he founded at 1199/SEIU, New York’s Health and
Human Service Union. His vision, echoing the plea of
female mill workers in Lawrence MA in 1912, proclaimed
bread, and roses too, as the staff of life. Joining him
on the frontlines of this charge were Harry Belafonte,
Pete Seeger, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis, who was employed
as a postal worker when Moe first “discovered” him. |
|
Young, Jewish,
and Left (2006), excerpt
Weaves gay culture, Jewish Arab history, secular Yiddishkeit, anti-racist analysis,
and religious/spiritual traditions into a multi-layered tapestry of Leftist politics.
Personal experiences from many of today’s leading Jewish activists reframe
the possibilities of Jewish identity. It presents a fresh and constructive take
on race, spirituality, Zionism, queerness, resistance, justice, and liberation. |
 |
At Home in Utopia (2008)
excerpt
Director Michal Goldman traces the engaging history of the United Workers Cooperative
Colony—a.k.a. “The Coops”—one of four cooperative apartments
built in the Bronx in the 1920s by visionary Jewish garment workers. At Home
in Utopia follows the life of this cooperative across two generations into the
1950s. This is a fascinating look at a story not well known and told by former
tenants whose lives were forever altered by their time in The Coops.
FORUM PANEL: Arieh Lebowitz, Communications
Director, Jewish Labor Committee, Aviva Kempner, director of
Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg, Esther Cohen, Executive Director of Bread
and Roses, Konnie Chameides, director of Young, Jewish, and Left,
and Michal Goldman, director of At Home in Utopia.
Panel Facilitators:
Elieen Eagan, Associate Professor of History and Michael Hillard,
Professor of Economics |
 |
1:00 - Kz
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Rex Bloomstein
Country: UK, 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 95 min.
Language: English/German w/subtitles
Against the backdrop of picaresque Austria, ‘Oompah’ bands play in
pubs, the residents of Mauthausens go about their daily lives. Just outside of
the town busloads of tourists who come from all over the world gather every day.
This is a place where thousands upon thousands of people from over thirty nations
were tortured and murdered. This is the site of a former KZ (short for concentration
camp in German). KZ reveals the lasting legacy and impact of the Holocaust on
individuals of all generations, nationalities and religions, through its unflinching
depiction of this small Austrian town and its past.
After film discussion facilitated
by Steve Wessler, Executive Director of The Center for the Prevention of Hate
Violence |
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7:00 - The Chosen
Ones
SPACE, 538 Congress Street, Portland
Country: Germany, 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 88 min.
Language: English
Director: Wendla Nölle
Musician and filmmaker Wendla Nölle travels to Manhattan in search of the
face of young Jewish music and introduces us to New York’s new generation
of Jewish musicians. Profiled is an Orthodox convert who can rap in four different
languages; a young blues musician who sings almost forgotten cantorial chants
against African beats; a pop music group that combines a funk sound with Jewish
spirituality and Hebrew lyrics; and an Orthodox rabbi whose funny, quirky songs
often deal with weighty subjects such as the Israel-Palestine conflict. |
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7:00 - Toots
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Kristi Jacobson
Country: USA, 2007 - Documentary
Duration: 85 min.
Language: English
The '40s and '50s were a classic period in New York City nightlife, when the
saloonkeeper was king and regular folks could drink with celebrities like Frank
Sinatra and Jackie Gleason. In this documentary, Jacobson profiles her grandfather,
the king of kings: Toots Shor of the eponymous restaurant and saloon, which was
once the place to be seen in Manhattan. Film includes interviews with Mike Wallace,
Gay Talese, Nicholas Pileggi, Pete Hamill, LeRoy Neiman, and others. |
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8:45 - Matzo
and Mistletoe
The Movies, 10 Exchange Street, Portland
Director: Kate Feiffer
Country: USA, 2007 - Documentary
Duration: 58 min.
Language: English
In Matzo & Mistletoe, Feiffer turns to family, friends, noted experts and
well-known personalities to sort through the complexities and paradoxes of secular
Jewish identity. Their stories are deeply personal, candid and often hilarious.
While looking at the underbelly of secular Judaism, Feiffer unexpectedly discovers
she is knee deep in controversy. Matzo & Mistletoe features Feiffer's parents
Jules Feiffer and Judy Feiffer, newscaster Mike Wallace, Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald,
columnist Walter Shapiro, writer Meryl Gordon, Professor Alan Dershowitz and
others.
In person: Director, Kate Feiffer |
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9:00 - The Bubble
SPACE, 538 Congress Street, Portland
Country: Israel, 2007 - Feature
Duration: 90 min.
Language: Hebrew
Director: Eytan Fox
Israeli twenty-somethings share a flat in Tel Aviv's hip
district, Shenkin Street. They love their carefree lives
inside Tel Aviv's "bubble," where the strains of
a violent outside world are kept at bay. Then Noam, a young
Israeli man meets Ashraf, a young Palestinian man and they
begin an affair. Ashraf cannot legally work or reside in
Tel Aviv. Seeing Ashraf's situation as a chance to act on
their principles of peaceful coexistence, the three roommates
unite to bring Ashraf into the bubble. How their ideals run
headlong into tragic realities forms the core tension in
this smart, keenly felt drama. (Mature themes, sexually explicit) |
 |
1:30 - Beethoven’s
Hair
Portland Museum of Art, Seven Congress Square, Portland
Director: Larry Weinstein
Country: UK / Canada / Czech Republic , 2005 - Documentary
Duration: 90 min.
Language: English / German / German / Danish
This award-winning documentary could be renamed “The Diaspora of Beethoven’s
Hair”. The film traces the unlikely journey of a lock of hair cut from
Beethoven's corpse and unravels the mystery of his tortured life and death. Beginning
with the story of Jewish music student, Ferdinand Hiller, who clipped a lock
of hair from his master’s head, the film races through 19th century Vienna,
the horrors of 20th-century Nazi Germany and finally a Sotheby auction where
the hair is purchased by a pair of Beethoven enthusiasts, Ira Brilliant and Che
Guevara. The story culminates in the science that reveals Beethoven's "medical
secret". |
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3:30 - Jellyfish
Portland Museum of Art, Seven Congress Square, Portland
Directors: Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen
Country: Israeli, 2007 - Feature
Duration: 87 min.
Language: Hebrew, English and Tagalog with English subtitles
Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, JELLYFISH
(MEDUZOT), tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv
women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait
of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes
in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is
one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a bride
who breaks her leg escaping a locked toilet stall, ruining
her chance at a dream Caribbean honeymoon. And attending
the event with an employer is Joy, a non Hebrew-speaking
domestic worker who has guiltily left her son behind in her
native Philippines. Do not miss this film!
* Winner, Camera d’Or at the 2007
Cannes Film Festival
Special guest: Udi Urman, Director of Cultural Affairs Consulate
General of Israel to New England |
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