Film Series
The Tauber Institute works in close cooperation with the National Center for Jewish Film, co-sponsoring film screenings and an annual Jewish film festival. These films touch on a wide variety of themes in Jewish history and contemporary Jewish life, providing the Brandeis community as well as the general public a unique cultural and cinematic experience.
We are proud to co-present the following films featured in The National Center for Jewish Film's 16th Annual Film Festival, April 10-21, 2013
Hannah Arendt
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE – Opening Night
Wed
nesday, April 10, 8:00 pm @ Museum of Fine Arts (Remis)
Germany/Israel | 2012 | 110m | English & German w/ English subtitles | Director: Margarethe von Trotta
The great Barbara Sukowa fully inhabits the role of Hannah Arendt in Margarethe von Trotta's fascinating biography of the influential philosopher and political theorist, whose reporting on the 1961 trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann led to her famous concept of the "banality of evil." Arendt’s controversial coverage for The New Yorker provokes an immediate scandal and Arendt, a beguiling blend of arrogance and vulnerability, finds herself attacked by both friends and foes. Co-stars include Janet McTeer as Mary McCarthy. NCJF previously screened von Trotta’s Rosenstrasse (2004) and Rosa Luxemburg (1986). Presented in conjunction with The Trial of Adolf Eichmann.
The Trial of Adolf Eichmann
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
S
unday, April 21, 3:15 pm @ West Newton Cinema
France | 2011 | 90m | English narration, Hebrew, German & French w/ English subtitles | Director: Michael Prazan
The 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann held in an Israeli courtroom and broadcast around the globe, was a benchmark event in the historiography of the Holocaust, especially in Israel where the trial proved a watershed experience for survivors and citizens of the new Jewish state. Employing new video and broadcast technologies, the trial was also a milestone in media and journalism coverage. From the producers of Being Jewish in France (JF2008) and Einsatzgruppen (JF2010), this absorbing, comprehensive new documentary features detailed accounts of Eichmann’s capture, the drama in the courtroom and behind the scenes, and reactions to the trial around the world. Presented in conjunction with Hannah Arendt.
My German Friend / Der Deutsche Freund / El Amigo Alemán
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE - WITH DIRECTOR
Thursday, April 11, 3:00 pm @ Museum of Fine Arts (Alfond)
Saturday, April 13, 8:00 pm @ Institute of Contemporary Art
Special Guest at ICA: Director Jeanine Meerapfel
Germany/Argentina | 2012 | 100m | Spanish & German w/ English subtitles | Director/Writer: Jeanine Meerapfel
In her remarkable new film, Jeanine Meerapfel (Malou, La Amiga) distills the momentous sweep of post-war Argentinean history into an intimate, humane love story that ricochets between Germany and Argentina, love and guilt, the political and the personal. In late 1950s Buenos Aires, young Sulamit Löwenstein (Celeste Cid), the daughter of German-Jewish immigrants, becomes friends with her neighbor Friedrich (Max Riemelt), the son of a senior SS officer. This oppressive legacy overshadows the couple for the next three decades as Celeste becomes a professor in Germany and Friedrich joins radical political movements in Germany and Argentina. “Brilliant.” –Argentina Independent Presented in conjunction with Meerapfel’s film In the Country of My Parents.
In the Country of My Parents / Im Land Meiner Eltern
SPECIAL SCREENING WITH DIRECTOR
Sunday, April 14, 2:30 pm @ West Newton
Special Guest: Director Jeanine Meerapfel
Germany | 1981| 88m | German w/ English subtitles | Director/Writer: Jeanine Meerapfel
Born to German Jewish émigrés fleeing Hitler, Jeanine Meerapfel was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1943. She “returned” to Germany in 1964 to attend film school and much of her work reflects her family’s experience of displacement. Meerapfel directly addresses her own Jewish identity and the implications of her decision to move to Germany in her groundbreaking 1981 documentary In the Country of My Parents, which offers revealing interviews with Jews living in post war Germany. Presented in conjunction with Meerapfel’s new film My German Friend.
Kol Nidre
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Sunday, April 21, 1:00 pm @ West Newton Cinema
USA | 1939 | 88m | Yiddish w/ new English subtitles | Director: Joseph Seiden
The National Center for Jewish Film’s New Film Restoration
Special Event with NCJF Directors Sharon Pucker Rivo & Lisa Rivo
A bissle of this, a bissel of that, Kol Nidre has a little bit of everything, combining family melodrama and romance with popular songs, cantorial music and comic bits in an inventive pastiche of themes and styles. The film stars Lili Liliana & Leon Liebgold, the husband and wife Polish actors from The Dybbuk, comedienne Yetta Zwerling, Motl the Operator star Chaim Tauber, and entertainer Cantor Leibele Waldman, with music by Sholem Secunda. Long lost, Kol Nidre has been restored with new English subtitles, using the sole surviving 35mm nitrate print. “The most bizarre film you will see all year.” –Jewish Week
In the Shadow / Ve Stinu
NEW ENGLAND PREMIERE
Saturday, April 20, 2:45 pm @ Museum of Fine Arts (Remis)
Sunday, April 21, 7:15 pm @ West Newton Cinema
Czech Republic/Poland/Israel | 2012 | 106m | Czech w/ English subtitles | Director/Writer: David Ondricek
A noir thriller set behind the Iron Curtain in 1950s Prague, this suspenseful crime drama follows police captain Hakl (Ivan Trojan, four time Czech Lion winner) as he investigates a seemingly mundane robbery. Hakl defiantly continues his investigation even after his superiors bring in Major Zenke (Sebastian Koch, The Lives of Others) a “specialist” from East Germany, who turns his attention to the Jewish community. Handsomely photographed by cinematographer Adam Skiora (My Australia, JF2012), the film was the Czech entry for Best Foreign Film Oscar. "A sleek, gorgeously old-fashioned noir that is stylish, yet clean and controlled...recalls the Coen Brothers' masterful 'Miller's Crossing.'" –Indiewire "A scathing, expertly directed political commentary." –Hollywood Reporter
Besa: The Promise
BOSTON PREMIERE
Sunday, April 14, 1:00 pm @ Museum of Fine Arts (Alfond)
[Special Guest: Johanna Neumann, Survivor Rescued by Albanians, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]
USA | 2012 | 86m | English, Albanian & Hebrew w/ English subtitles | Director: Rachel Goslins
Besa explores the little known history of Albanian Muslims who risked their lives to rescue Jews during WWII, following the lead of their exiled king who had granted asylum to Jewish refugees. A remarkable, personal story unfolds when Norman H. Gershman’s project to photograph these brave rescuers uncovers Muslim Albanian toyshop owner Rexhep Hoxha, who sets out to find the Jewish family his father sheltered 60 years before and to return the sacred Jewish books left in his care. The film features Gershman’s striking portraits, award-winning cinematography and an original score by Philip Glass. “A lesson in interfaith cooperation.” –CNN “A story like no other.” –Huffington Post