2012 Maine Jewish Film Festival Films

Arab Labor

Director: Roni Ninio
Country: Israel | 2007 | TV Sitcom
Duration: 26 min.
Language: Arabic, Hebrew with English subtitles
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This Israeli series is a MJFF audience favorite. Laugh-out loud funny! It is a raucous and irreverent critically acclaimed comedy series. Created by Sayed Kashua, a 32-year-old Israeli-born Palestinian journalist, Arab Labor (in Hebrew avoda aravit, which colloquially means “shoddy or second-rate work”) focuses on Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen in search of acceptance into Israeli society.

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A Ruben by Any Other Name

Director: Jeremy Dylan Lanni
Country: US | 2011 | Comedy
Duration: 4 min.
Language: English
A humorous look at the differences between Orthodox and Reform Judaism played out in terms of the differences between the New York and Los Angeles versions of the Reuben sandwich.

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Between Two Worlds

Director: Alan Snitow and Deborah Kaufman
Country: USA | 2011| Documentary
Duration: 70 min.
Language: English
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Who speaks for a divided community at the crossroads? Between Two Worlds is a groundbreaking personal exploration of the community and family divisions that are redefining American Jewish identity and politics. The filmmakers’ own families are battlegrounds over loyalty to Israel, interpretations of the Holocaust, intermarriage, and a secret communist past.

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Burial of Names

Director: Phyllis Graber Jensen
Country: US | 2011 | Documentary
Duration: 8 min.
Language: English
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Led by their rabbi, members of a small Jewish community in Maine gather to bury Jewish artifacts.

Crime After Crime

Director: Yoav Potash
Country: USA | 2011 | Documentary
Duration: 93 min.
Language: English
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Yoav Potash’s documentary is a shattering chronicle of Deborah Peagler, an African American woman imprisoned for the 1983 murder of her abusive boyfriend. After a law passes allowing survivors of domestic violence to appeal their sentences, two idealistic lawyers, one an Orthodox Jew, become convinced they can set her free. This is a staggering account of a fight against injustice and a suspect system still imprisoning hundreds of thousands of women across America today.

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David

Director: Joel Fendelman
Country: US | 2011 | Drama
Duration: 80 min.
Language: English

As the son of the Imam of the local Brooklyn mosque, eleven year-old Daud has to juggle the high expectations of his father and his feelings of isolation and difference–even from his peers in the Muslim community. Through an innocent act of good faith, Daud inadvertently befriends a group of Jewish boys who mistake him as a fellow classmate at their Orthodox school, in the neighboring Jewish community.

• Ecumenical Prize, Montreal World Film Festival 2011
• Audience Award, Brooklyn Film Festival 2011
• Special Jury Award at the Napa Valley Film Festival, 2011

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David and Goliath

Director: George Zaverdas  
Country: US | 2010 | Drama
Duration: 12 min.
Language: English

Set in 1943 Czechoslovakia, David, a Jewish resistance fighter, flees for his life as he is being hunted down by Nazis. He finds refuge in a doghouse and ultimately a ferocious German Shepherd becomes his savior. This is Man’s Best Friend at his best.

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Dolphin Boy

Director: Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir
Country: Israel | 2010 | Documentary
Duration: 72 min.
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
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Morad – a teenager from an Arab village in the north of Israel disconnects himself from humans following a violent attack that he experienced. As a last resort before hospitalization in a mental institution he is taken by his devoted father to be treated with dolphins in Eilat. This documentary about the devastating havoc that human violence can wreak upon the human soul, and about the healing powers of nature and of love.

• Official Selection Hot Docs 2011
• Winner of the Jury Mention Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival

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Eyes Wide Open

Director: Haim Tabakman
Country: Israel | 2009 | Feature
Duration: 91 min.
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
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Aaron, a respectable butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-orthodox Jewish community is married to Rivka and is a dedicated father of four children. One day, he meets Ezri, a handsome twenty-two year old student, and soon falls in love with him. He then starts to neglect his family and community life, swept away by his love and lust for Ezri. But guilt, torment and pressure from the community will catch up with him, leading him to make a radical decision.

• Best Movie at the International Ghent Film Festival 2009

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Forever Scared

Director: Dorit Zimbalist
Country: Israel | 2009 | Documentary
Duration: 52 min.
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles
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Sayed Kashua (2010 SFJFF Freedom of Expression Award winner) is the Israeli writer of the a top-rated television comedy series, Arab Labor. He’s a Palestinian citizen of Israel, a walking, talking oxymoron, an invisible man constantly called upon to justify himself, his work and even his decision to write in Hebrew. Sayed Kashua Forever Scared is a fascinating journey inside the complicated life and complex mind of a unique creative force. This film is a behind the scenes look of the Israeli television series Arab Labor.

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In Heaven Underground

Director: Britta Wauer
Country: Germany | 2011 | Documentary
Duration: 90 min.
Language: German

The Weissensee Jewish Cemetery is an enchanting journey into history that celebrates life and the immortality of memories. North of Berlin’s noisy city centre, surrounded by a jungle of trees and lush foliage, lies the peaceful and secluded 130-year-old Weissensee Jewish Cemetery, the largest Jewish cemetery still in use in Europe.

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Little Rose

Director: Jan Kidawa-Blonski
Country: Poland | 2010 | Feature
Duration: 118 min.
Language: Polish with English subtitles
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Passions ignite this thriller set in Poland in spring 1968, when the government’s anti-Semitic campaign puts citizens on edge. Security policeman Rozėk sends his lover to investigate whether a well-known dissident writer is Jewish. As her assignment progresses, she wins not only the writer’s trust but also his love. Based on the character of Polish writer Pawel Jasienica, with powerful performances by Poland’s legendary Andrzej Seweryn (the films of Andrzej Wajda, Schindler’s List), Robert Wieckięwicz as the policeman, and Magdalena Boczarska as secret agent “Little Rose.”

• Golden Frog Award Cinematography, Camberimage, 2010
• Silver St. George Award, Best Director, Moscow, 2010
• Grand Prize of 35th Polish Film Festival, The Golden Lion

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Salsa Tel Aviv

Director: Jorge Weller
Country: Israel | 2011| Feature
Duration: 90 min.
Language: Hebrew, Spanish
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Vicky travels to Israel dressed as a nun to find her estranged husband who is an illegal salsa teacher in Tel Aviv. On the plane she meets Yoni, a shy university professor and a confusing and amusing friendship develops. The film follows in the best tradition of a screwball romantic comedy.

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Seltzer Works

Director: Jessica Edwardsr
Country: USA | 2010 | Documentary
Length: 7 min.
Language: English
The siphon machines at Gomberg Seltzer Works don’t turn like they used to. Nevertheless, the last bottler in Brooklyn fends off the supermarket-seltzer takeover and honors this cherished drink’s place in history.

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Stealing Klimt

Director: Jane Chablani
Country: UK | 2007| Documentary
Duration: 92 min.
Language: English, German
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The Holocaust was not just the greatest murder in history; it was also the greatest theft of art in history. This dramatic film recounts the decades long struggle by Maria Altmann, born and raised in Austria, to recover five Gustav Klimt paintings stolen from her family by the Nazis in 1938, and which have been hanging in the Austrian National Gallery since 1945.

The Adventures of Super Benji, the Boy with Stupendous Powers

Director: Neil Needleman
Country: US | 2012 | Comedy
Duration: 4 min.
Language: English
A simple story of love, patience and developing super powers.

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The Bump in My Nose

Director: Kevin McGuiness
Country: USA| 2011 | Animated
Duration: 3 min.
Language: English
This film revolves around a young girl named Marissa Freedberg, who discusses the bump in her nose and other aspects of her appearance that make her uneasy. Throughout the story Marissa struggles and eventually succeeds at finding self-acceptance in spite of a culture that finds diversity difficult to resolve.

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The Hebrew Hammer

Director: Jonathan Kesselman
Country: USA | 2003 | Comedy
Duration: 85 minutes
Language: English
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Mordechai Jefferson Carver, aka the Hebrew Hammer, is an Orthodox Jewish stud who goes on a mission to save Hanukkah from Santa Claus’s evil son Damian. Throwing political correctness out the window, and guaranteed to offend everyone. Sacrilegious, fearless and hysterically funny!

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This is Sodom

Director: Adam Sanderson and Muli Segev
Country: Israel | 2010  | Comedy
Duration: 88 min.
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles

This is Sodom is a bawdy biblical comedy in the best tradition of Monty Python and Mel Brooks. As God’s wrath draws closer, Abraham, Lot, the Sodomites and their rulers, and even the avenging angels are seduced by the decadent delights of the most famous Sin City in history. Skewering everything from religious figures, reality TV, game shows, musicals and vapid celebrities to contemporary Israeli culture, the cast of the comedy troupe Eretz Nehederet (the Israeli Saturday Night Live) leaves no sacred cows unslaughtered.

ADULT CONTENT, SITUATIONS AND LANGUAGE

The Matchmaker

Director: Avi Nesher
Country: Israel | 2010 | Feature
Duration: 122 min.
Language: Hebrew
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In 1968 Haifa, teenage Arik gets a summer job working for Yankele Bride, a mysterious Holocaust survivor who makes ends meet by brokering marriages and smuggling goods. As Arik begins to learn the mysteries of the human heart, he falls in love with his neighbor Tamara, who is visiting from America during the “summer of love.”

• Panavision Audience Choice Award 2010
• Toronto International Film Festival 2011 – Official Selection

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The Name of Love

Director: Michel Leclerc
Country: France | 2010 | Comedy
Duration: 102 min.
Language: French
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A romantic comedy with a serious backbone, sets the age-old opposites-attract formula in a contemporary French setting. What both have in common is a tragic family history—she, the Algerian War and he, the Holocaust. This provides the context for director Michel Leclerc to satirize a number of hot-button sociopolitical issues including anti-Semitism, Arab-Jewish relations, immigration, and racial and cultural identity.

• Cesar Awards 2011, Best Actress and Best Original Screenplay

ADULT THEMES, NUDITY AND SEXUAL CONTENT

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The Quest for the Missing Piece

Director: Oded Lotan
Country: Israel | 2007 | Documentary
Duration: 52 min.
Language: Hebrew, German, Russian

A thorough investigation of the tradition and implications of circumcision under the humorous pretext of the director looking for his missing piece.

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