SELECTED
FESTIVAL SCREENINGS
Belz Museum of Asian and Judaic Art, 2010
Portland
Art Museum, 2005
Brooklyn
Museum of Art, 2003
Los Angeles
Sephardic Film Festival, 2001
Laemmle
Theaters (Los Angeles), 1997
Jewish
Film Festival (Amherst, NY), 1996
Seattle
Jewish Film Festival, 1995
Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, 1993
Baltimore
Museum of Art, 1993
Toronto
Jewish Film Festival, 1993
Jewish
Women’s Film Festival (NY), 1993
Los Angeles
Film Festival, 1993
Palm Beach
Jewish Film Festival, 1992
TELEVISION
BROADCASTS
KQED, San Francisco
SBS, Australia
ZDF, Germany
In the late
fifteenth century, the glory of Sephardic Jewry on the Iberian peninsula
came to an end: In 1492, the Jews of Spain were expelled. In 1497, the
Jews of Portugal were forcibly converted to Christianity. Now they were
subject to the Inquisition's harsh punishment for heresy. Despite the
danger, however, many of the converted Jews—called marranos
"pigs" by Christians—continued to practice Judaism in
secret.
Five centuries
later, The Last Marranos
takes a fascinating look at the village of Belmonte, Portugal. Its rites
and prayers are an amalgam of Christianity and vestiges of Judaism tenaciously
preserved through the ages. These traditions bear the scars of history
distorted by clandestine practice and couched in symbols of fear. Now,
brought into the open and reacquainting itself with mainstream Judaism,
the community faces a new challenge.
CRITICAL
ACCLAIM
"Generation
by generation, the Marranos' closed-door ceremonies became the oral tradition
of women rather than men (in opposition to Hebrew custom), with ceremonial
rituals handed down from mother to daughter. There
is no persecution any more, but, as the film shows, there is still an
aura of secrecy about the movement."
-Washington Post
"The film opens in a small village in the Portuguese countryside: “Judeus? Judeus?” The director asks where the Jews live and sure enough, everyone in this village—which seems not to have changed very much since 1497, when Portugal’s Jews were forcibly converted—can identify them. Thus begins Frederic Brenner’s The Last Marranos, a film about the community of anusim, the descendants of forced converts who clandestinely maintained Jewish belief and practice for centuries in their native village of Belmonte in Portugal. The film opens a hidden universe in a way that the most compelling novel or book of serious scholarship never could. Its stark images and candid interviews allow the story of the community to unfold with complexity and richness, leaving the viewer with questions and hungry to learn more. Who are these Jews? How do they fit into a larger narrative of what it means to be Jewish? The film about a small, marginal community forces the viewer to consider the very essence of what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century."
-New York Jewish Week (March 2012)
PURCHASE DVD
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Home Use Only DVD (Not for Classroom/Institutional
Use)
Does
not include Public Performance Rights
Home
Use Policy (pdf)
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INSTITUTIONAL
USE
$90.00
plus shipping
Classroom/Institutional Use Only
DVD
Does
not include Public Performance Rights
Institutional
Use Policy (pdf)
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