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San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 2013
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-12-2013 at 09:49 PM.
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Some short reviews of short films coming in this year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival begin here.
Behind Me Olive Trees (Pascale Abou Jamra 2012)
Red Flag (Alex Karpovsky 2012)
That Woman (Ed Dick 2012)
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-04-2013 at 01:26 PM.
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Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-04-2013 at 01:26 PM.
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Ziyad Douari: The Attack (2012) - SFJFF CENTERPIECE FILM
REYMOND AMSALEM AND ALI SULIMAN IN THE ATTACK
Irreconcilable differences
Ziyad Doueri's The Attack provides an obvious setup. When Amin Jaafari, a distinguished Palestinian surgeon in Tel Aviv, gets a major Israeli award, there is a terrorist bombing and his wife, killed in the incident, becomes the prime suspect. This is a complete shock to him.
We get the point: even a thoroughly assimilated Palestinian awarded a national honor by Israeli society still finds his security and sense of belonging hang by a thread. The doctor, after treating the injured, is himself a suspect and is held for brutal interrogation but later found innocent and released. His colleagues at the hospital nonetheless pass around a petition to strip him of his Israeli citizenship. But a few Israeli colleagues remain utterly loyal. Incredulous and now angry at his wife whom he seems no longer to know or understand, Dr. Jaafari goes to Nablus to investigate, at considerable personal risk, the sources of the bombing, starting with his own and his wife's family.
This is a setup to show Palestinian rage and the impossibility of a Palestinian's assimilating into Israeli society. But it's not a very obvious setup, after all, because this can't be a very typical case. Surely Palestinians who've won distinction in Tel Aviv don't turn out to have wives who are suicide bombers -- or do they?
This was also scheduled as the centerpiece film at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, July 30 (Castro Theater, San Francisco) and Aug. 4 (California Theater, Berkeley). Debuted at Teluride, then Toronto, fall 2012; limited US theatrical release Jun2 27, 2013. Screened for this review at Angelika Film Center, NYC, July 10, 2013.
For the full review see Filmleaf's Festival Coverage section for the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival here.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-18-2013 at 01:34 PM.
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Jill Soloway: Afternoon Delight (2012)
RACHEL HAHN IN AFTERNOON DELGIHT
In TV writer Soloway's short feature a bored, well-off Jewish LA wife (Kathryn Hahn) brings a dangerous element into her household in an effort to liven up her sex life, do good, or just relieve the ennui. More titillating than enlightening, with a definite reference to the protag's involvement in the local JCC to qualify for SFJFF inclusion and an annoying motormouth protagonist, AFTERNOON DELIGHT has the peculiar distinction of being a film made for women that women will probably not want to watch.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-18-2013 at 01:41 PM.
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Hilla Medalia: Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
Award-winning Israeli documentarian Hilla Medalia follows world-famous ballroom dancing exponent Pierre Dulaine as he teaches Palestinian and Jewish Israeli fifth-graders etiquette and mutual respect in his hometown Jaffa, now a poor, mixed suburb of Tel Aviv. DANCING IN JAFFA, 84 mins., was picked up at Tribeca by Sundance Selects for US theatrical release jointly along with IFC, probably in the fall of 2013. It becomes part of an upcoming IFC/Sundance lineup that also includes Alexandre Moors' BLUE CAPRICE (ND/NF 2013), Abdellatif Kechiche's Cannes Palm d'Or winner BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR, and other Cannes films VENUS IN FUR Polanski, (from the stage play) and YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL (Francois Ozon).
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-23-2013 at 01:36 PM.
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Alan Berliner's FIRST COUSIN ONCE REMOVED will be shown at these venues and times during the SFJFF:
July 29, 6:25, Castro Theatre, San Francisco
August 3, 12:00, California Theatre, Berkeley
August 4, 12:00, Cinearts, Palo Alto
August 11, 2:05, Rafael Film Center, San Rafael, CA
Other new films of note in the Bay Area (not in the Jewish Film Festival):
CRYSTAL FAIRY (Sebastian Silva)
Now Playing
Opera Cinema Plaza, San Francisco
Shattuck Cinemas, Berkeley
AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY (Terrence Nance)
Now Playing
Roxie Theater, San Francisco
--July 23, 2013.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-28-2013 at 03:31 PM.
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Yotam Feldman: The Lab (2012)
This shocking documentary about the Israeli arms manufactoring and marketing abroad deserves to be seen with two other powerful ones I've reviewed, THE GATEKEEPERS, about the Israeli security services; and THE LAW IN THESE PARTS, about the legal double standard imposed on Palestinians in the State of Israel. All contain interviews with leading figures.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-27-2013 at 12:37 AM.
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Clara Kuperberg, Joelle Oosterlinck : The Art of Spiegelman (2010)
Art Spiegelman in The Art of Spiegelman
A lovely 40-minute portrait of Art Spiegelman, a leader of the underground comix of the Seventies and famous for Maus, his graphic novel narrative completed through the Eighties of discovering the Holocaust through conversations with his concentration camp survivor father. Over a period of several decades Spiegelman also did some provocative New Yorker covers as an artist for the magazine since 1992, and his French wife Françoise Mouly, a longtime collaborator, has been The New Yorker's Art Director since 1993. Maus is a classic. So is Spiegelman, an articulate and happy man whom it's a pleasure to listen to and learn about.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-26-2013 at 11:46 PM.
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Rachel Loube: Every Tuesday, a Portrait of the New Yorker Cartoonists (2011) )
Young New Yorker cartoonist Zack Kamin
Now, a dozen or so meet for lunch on Tuesdays, the day when the New Yorker cartoons for the next week are chosen. They often submit ten, and one at most is chosen; over all, maybe one in a hundred gets a spot in the magazine. This 20-minute doc interviews four of the current crop, male, female, young, old. A documentary about all the great New Yorker cartoonists of the magazine's glory days has yet to be made, but one may be under way, and on YouTube there is a short film about how the cartoons are selected each week featuring Mike Mankoff, the current New Yorker cartoon editor.
New Yorker cartoon by Drew Dernovich, a contributor
since 2002 who uses scrathboard to create the look
of a Thirties woodcut in his cartoons.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-28-2013 at 08:06 PM.
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More to come
Watch for my upcoming reviews of, or short comments on, these additional SFJFF titles:
After Tiller (Lana Wilson, Martha Shane) 2013
Documentary on the lives and work of the four remaining doctors who try carry on Dr. George Tiller's work of 3rd trimester abortions in the US since the pro-life extremist assassination of Tiller in 2009 . 88 mins. Sundance (see 20-minute Democracy Now report.) US release NYC Sept. 20, 2013.
All In/La suerte en tus manos (Daniel Burman 2012)
An Argentinian rom-com feature: An addictive poker player from Buenos Aires with two young kids reconnects with an old flame after his marriage fizzles. 113 mins. Festivals. I reviewed this director's 2006 Family Law.
American Commune (Nadine Mundo, Rena Mundo Croshere 2013)
A documentary about two sisters revisiting a rural 1970-founded Tennessee commune they left in 1985 called "The Farm." 90 mins. Festivals.
Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (Maurice Linnane 2012)
A concert + doc about the late singer (she died in July 2011 at the age of 28) when she gave a stunning acoustic performance in a church at the music festival in the Irish fishing village of Dingle in 2006. 60 mins. TV episode, UK 23 July 2012.
Before the Revolution/قبل إز إنقلاب [Before the Coup] (Dan Shadur 2013)
A documentary about pre-'79 when Israel and Iran were allies, about the large Israeli community in Teheran who woke up one day and had to flee. 60 mins. No release info.
In the Shadow/Ve stínu (David Ondříček 2012)
A noirish Czech feature of a cop battling a corrupt communist system in Prague in 1953; 106 mins. 2012 Czech Oscar Best Foreign entry. Festivals. UK/Australian DVD? I reviewed his 2006 Grandhotel (SFIFF 2007).
Jerry and Me (Mehrnaz Saeedvafa 2012)
In an autobiographical and historical documentary an Iranian filmmaker examines her early fascination with the comic in light of an uneasy later personal encounter, with a quick review of Iranian film history. 38 mins. Festivals. Detailed blog review summary here.
Joe Papp in Five Acts (Karen Thorsen, Tracie Holder 2012)
A documentary portrait of the influential New York theatrical impressario. 84 mins. DVD release 6 June 2010. Shown on PBS’s American Masters series Thursday, 4 April 2013. Hollywood Reporter review .
The Last Sentence/Dom över död man (Jan Troell 2012)
A feature by the great Swedish director based on the life of journalist Torgny Segerstedt, who alerted the Swedish public to the threat of Fascism in the 1930s. 124 mins. Festivals; in Sweden and the Netherlands already theatrically released.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 08-02-2013 at 01:26 PM.
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Martha Shane and Lana Wilson: After Tiller (2013)
A documentary about the four remaining doctors in the US who perform late-term abortions in the wake of the 2009 murder of their mentor and colleague Dr. George Tiller, killed in church in Kansas. This is a preview. The film will be released theatrically in NYC September 30.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-30-2013 at 12:06 AM.
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Daniel Burman: All In [La suerte en tus manos] (2012)
Rom-com, Jewish, in Buenos Aires. An obsessive poker player and successful financial wheeler-dealer, divorced, with two young kids, reunites with a girlfriend from his youth, but a lie he tells her keeps him tangled up for scene after scene. Talented director Burman with his frequent writing collaborator Sergio Dubcovsky has produced something very ingenious, but perhaps too much so. They went to a great deal of trouble, still keeping it pretty light, to deliver something that's done better in Hollywood, and sometimes Paris. There are some fun moments though, and very watchable actors, including Argentinian diva Norma Aleandro, as the girlfriend's intellectual celebrity mother.
I reviewed Burman's 2006 FAMILY LAW and Oscar offered knowledgeable commentary. Since Burman is an "unofficial chronicler of Jewish life in Argentina," or in Buenos Aires anyway, this is definitely a movie that belongs in the Jewish Film Festival. I think FAMILY LAW was more original and better. I have not seen any of Burman's seven other features, as yet anyway. I see Netflix has two of them.
Venezia
By the way: The Venice Film Festival, no. 70, announced their lineup July 25.
70th Venice Film Festival
28th August > 7th September 2013
Click on the image below for more information:
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-30-2013 at 01:38 AM.
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Rena Mundo Croshere, Nadine Mundo: American Commune (2013)
America's largest utopian socialist experiment is revisited by two sisters who left it with their mother at nine and twelve when a mass exodus split their parents, a Puerto Rican man from the Bronx and a woman from a well-off orthodox Jewish family in Beverly Hills who had met as followers of Stephen Galkin, the charismatic guru in San Francisco who led a caravan to Tennessee where 300 hippie Christian-spiritual vegans abstaining from alcohol and contraception living in the commune they called "The Farm" grew through the Seventies to 1,200. Nadine and Rena go to a recent reunion of members, and tell their story and the commune's with a wealth of archival materials and present-day interviews with themselves, their parents and brother, and former commune members, including the leader, who still lives there. The sisters have a feeling of rediscovering lost roots.
Last edited by Chris Knipp; 07-31-2013 at 01:19 AM.
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Maurice Linnane: Amy Winehouse: The Day She Came to Dingle (2012)
She was only 22 in 2006 when Amy Winehouse sang in the church of St James where the Other Voices featival is held in the remote Irish fishing village of Dingle. The film interweaves an interview with Amy at the time, a Russian Jew with a cockney accent, illustrating the influences she mentions, with her concert showing a voice that movingly interweaves jazz, soul, blues, and gospel with the semi-accoustic sound of a backup consisting only of lead and bass guitar. A lovely moment in time rendered tragic by Winehouse's death from an overdose in 2011.
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