Q&A|Virtual screening

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:

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.

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

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:

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.