NOTE: AJFF365 subscribers do NOT need tickets! Instead, log in to virtual.goelevent.com to watch anytime once the film is available for viewing.
In addition to the film, AJFF’s Q&A with Ameen Nayfeh is available to watch as bonus material in the watch portal.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has had an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father’s love won”t give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall.
Mustafa and his wife Salwa live 200 meters apart in villages separated by the wall. One day he gets a call every parent dreads: his son has had an accident. Rushing to cross the Israeli checkpoint, Mustafa is denied on a technicality. But a father’s love won”t give up and he will do anything to reach his son. A 200 meter distance becomes a 200 kilometer odyssey, as Mustafa, left with no choice, attempts to smuggle himself to the other side of the wall.
Length: 96 minutes
Cast: Ali Suliman
Director: Ameen Nayfeh
Writer: Ameen Nayfeh
Introduction from director Ameen Nayfeh.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Ameen Nayfeh will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
For most of his adult life, Saul Bellow was the most acclaimed novelist in America and winner of, among other awards, the Nobel Prize in Literature, three National Book Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. The Adventures of Saul Bellow is the first-ever documentary film on Saul Bellow, the man described by critic James Wood as the ”greatest of American prose stylists in the 20th century.” Marking the centennial of his birth and the tenth anniversary of his death, this film features original interviews with Bellow”s family, close friends, and writers inspired by him, including Martin Amis and A. B. Yehoshua. Bellow”s revolutionary impact on American literature is examined, as are his many identities as a writer, polemicist, ”serial husband,” father, Chicagoan, Jew, and American. The film highlights a previously underestimated element of Bellow”s life and work: his humor. Bellow”s satire and scalding wit reflected his joy and commitment to life, but also his belief that the world was marked by disorder and unruliness.
Length: 86 minutes
Director: Asaf Galay
Presentation partner:
Introduction from director Asaf Galay.
The Adventures of Saul Bellow trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Asaf Galay will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
Boris Schatz left two of Israel’s most important institutions – The Israel Museum and The Bezalel Art Academy – as his legacy, along with an endless collection of important, seminal works of art. His life ended while gathering donations for Bezalel, then on the brink of bankruptcy, without ever reaping the fruits of his labor. Another chapter of his biography seems to have disappeared – the kidnapping of his daughter, Angelica, by her mother who had fallen in love with one of his students. This was an event that became crucial to the Israeli art world, but also to Angelica’s life. The discovery of a chain of letters in the Zionist Archives, along with a roll of paintings in an attic, send the film’s director, Angelica’s great-grandson, to investigate Boris and Angelica’s tragic relationship, forever baring the revengeful seal of her father and his new family.
Length: 75 minutes
Director: Dan Pe’er
Angelica trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Dan Pe’er will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
The film brings to light, as an historical scoop, the Yugoslav Holocaust which resulted in the slaying of 85% of the Yugoslav glorious Jewish community who did not suffer any form of discrimination. Stella, a young Israeli born in Yugoslavia researches the nature of the extermination of Jews, the part of the Germans, and the part played by the various Yugoslav nationalities in the massacre. Parallel, Stella is exploring what was the fate of her great grandfather who saved Jews during the war. Yugoslavia”s beautiful scenery provides a dramatic contrast to the horrible deeds performed on its soil.
Length: 74 minutes
Director: Nitza Gonen
Introduction from Nitza Gonen.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Nitza Gonen will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
Roman Cudakowski, for friends – Cudak – plays in a band performing at weddings and city events. During the occupation, the musician is not doing well. He can make some extra money by performing for the Germans, who simply cannot imagine a musical band without a fiddler. Cudak decides to sneak a talented musician, Szymon Akerman, out of the ghetto, even though before the war they did not see eye to eye. In this new reality surrounding them, they find they need each other. Cudak makes money by playing with Akerman, who in turn gets to live. One day Roman decides to aid the fiddler by rescuing him and his family from the ghetto and hiding them in his home risking his life.
Length: 82 minutes
Cast: Andrzej Kłak
Director: Anna Kazejak
Writer: Marek Kreutz
Presentation partner:
The Musicians trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Anna Kazejak will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
In a Syrian border village in the early 80’s, little Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived with the goal of making strapping Panarabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. To enable paradise to come to earth, he uses the rod to forbid the Kurdish language, orders the veneration of Assad and preaches hate of the Zionist enemy- the Jews. The lessons upset and confuse Sero because his long-time neighbors are a lovable Jewish family. With a fine sense of humor and satire, the film depicts a childhood which manages to find light moments between dictatorship and dark drama. Little Sero gets involved in dangerous pranks with his friends, and dreams of having a television so he can finally watch cartoons. But he also experiences how the adults around him are increasingly crushed by the despotism, violence and nationalism which surround them. The film was inspired by the director’s personal experiences, and so his bitter-sweet memories connect the Syrian tragedy to the present.
Length: 124 minutes
Cast: Jay Abdo
Director: Mano Khalil
Introduction by Mano Khalil.
Neighbors trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Mano Khalil will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
AJFF365 subscribers, Combo Pass holders, and Classic/Presenter/Premium Members ONLY: You automatically get access to this film (no ticket needed!) by logging into our watch portal at virtual.goevelent.com.
As theatergoers prepare for the return of Broadway after an unprecedented absence of 18 months, an all-star cast tells the inside story of the last time Broadway theater came back from the brink. On Broadwayshows how this revival helped save New York City, thanks to innovative work, a new attention to inclusion, and the sometimes uneasy balance between art and commerce. Brand new interviews with legends of the stage and screen, including Hugh Jackman, Helen Mirren, Christine Baranski, August Wilson, James Corden, Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Viola Davis, and Ian McKellen take us behind the scenes of Broadway’s most groundbreaking and beloved shows, from A Chorus Line to Hamilton. Archival clips of iconic performances by Lin Manuel Miranda, Patti Lupone, Bernadette Peters, James Earl Jones and Mandy Patinkin punctuate this hurly-burly ride through the main street of American show business. Now that New York City is facing an uncertain path forward in its recovery from a devastating pandemic, this documentary from Academy Award®-nominated director Oren Jacoby and the producers of RBG shows how Broadway led the way in the city’s last great rebirth and provides a model of how it can come back again.
Cast: Helen Mirren, Alec Baldwin, Christine Baranski, James Corden, August Wilson, Viola Davis, Hugh Jackman, John Lithgow, Cameron Mackintosh, Sir Ian McKellen, and many more!
Director: Oren Jacoby
This event is supported in part by:
On Broadway trailer.
Oren Jacoby is an Oscar-nominated writer, director and producer of award-winning documentary films. His latest film, On Broadway, tells the story of the transformation of the Broadway Theater and New York City.
Based on a true story. In 1945, a group of Jewish holocaust survivors planned to poison the water system in Germany, Killing back 6 million Germans. The film tells the dangerous and bold secret-operation which was called – Plan A.
Based on the book “Nakam“ by Prof. Dina Porat, the chief Historian of “Yad Va shem.“
Nudity and violence.
Length: 109 minutes
Cast: Michael Aloni
Director: Doron Paz and Yoav Paz
Writer: Doron Paz and Yoav Paz
Introduction by directors Yoav and Doron Paz.
Plan A trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with directors Doron Paz and Yoav Paz will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
The Red Orchestra, a most important resistance net in Nazi-Germany, stole Hitler’s plans for the invasion of the Soviet-Union. Via an espionage group of Jewish communists in Brussels they radioed it to the Soviets. After locating their transmitters, Hitler set off a deadly hunt. Postwar, the ex-Gestapo henchmen were courted by Western intelligence services, Propaganda distorted the legacy of the Red Orchestra. Two large-scale films were launched in East and West – each merely partly truthful. Excerpts from both films are ‘reunited’ in this documentary film to tell the complete story. Descendants in Berlin, Brussels, Paris and Jerusalem contribute to this first comprehensive film of the defamed resistance network.
Length: 120 minutes
Cast: Yehudi Kafri
Director: Carl-Ludwig Rettinger
Writer: Carl-Ludwig Rettinger
Introduction from director Carl-Ludwig Rettinger
The Red Orchestra trailer.
Screening will be accompanied by a Q&A.
Q&A with director Carl-Ludwig Rettinger will play immediately after the film in-theater and be available as bonus content for virtual participants.
