New York Jewish Film Festival 2012

Deaf Jam
New York City Premiere

Judy Lieff | USA | 2011 | 70m

Categories: Documentary

Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 17: 1:00pm
Buy Tickets: Thu Jan 19: 8:30pm

This high-energy documentary explores the beauty and power of American Sign Language (ASL) poetry through the story of deaf teen Aneta Brodski’s bold journey into the spoken word poetry slam scene. In a remarkable twist of fate, Aneta—an Israeli immigrant high school student living in New York—meets and then collaborates with Tahani—a hearing Palestinian slam poet. Poetry, friendship and respect transcend politics as the two young women create a hearing/deaf duet.
DIRECTOR JUDY LIEFF AND FILM SUBJECTS ANETA BRODSKI AND TAHANI SALAH WILL ATTEND. CO-PRODUCER STEVE ZEITLIN WILL ATTEND JAN 17 SCREENING. BOB HOLMAN, FOUNDER OF THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB, WILL ATTEND JAN 19 SCREENING.
Both Q&A sessions will be sign language interpreted.

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Dressing America: Tales From The Garment Center
New York Premiere

Steven Fischler & Joel Sucher | USA | 2011 | 57m

Categories: Documentary

Buy Tickets: Mon Jan 16: 1:00pm
Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 24: 8:15pm

From the directors of From Swastika to Jim Crow (NYJFF 2000) comes this fascinating documentary exploring the post-World War II heyday of the garment district in Manhattan. Mavens of the “shmatte” business pay tribute to the Jewish immigrant roots of the garment industry, when Sam, You Made the Pants Too Long was a top musical hit and American designers challenged the hegemony of Paris fashion.
DIRECTORS STEVEN FISCHLER AND JOEL SUCHER WILL ATTEND.

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preceded by

Orbit
New York Premiere

Jessica Dorfman | USA | 2011 | 19m

Categories: Romance, Short Film

In this short drama, a young girl ponders her place and develops a crush on a waiter at her father’s second wedding.

Incessant Visions: Letters From An Architect
New York Premiere

Duki Dror | Israel | 2011 | 70m

Categories: Documentary, Germany, Israel

Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 24: 6:00pm
Buy Tickets: Wed Jan 25: 1:00pm

A cinematic meditation about architect Erich Mendelsohn, based on his letters and a memoir by his wife Louise. As a young man, he drew sketches on tiny pieces of paper and sent them, from the trenches, to the young cellist waiting for him in Berlin. She believed in his genius and after World War I helped him become the busiest architect in Germany. When she planned to leave him for a communist poet, he built a perfect house for her. When the Nazis came to power, the couple escaped the house and Germany, and he turned his talents to creating buildings in the U.S. and Israel.
DIRECTOR DUKI DROR WILL ATTEND.

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My Father Evgeni

Andrei Zagdansky | USA/Ukraine | 2010 | 77m

Categories: Documentary

Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 17: 9:00pm [at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center]
Buy Tickets: Wed Jan 18: 3:30pm

Andrei Zagdansky (Interpretation of Dreams, NYJFF 1992) returns to the NYJFF with a moving portrait of his father, who was editor-in-chief of the Kiev Popular Science Film Studio. Father and son worked in the same studio for 11 years, until Andrei immigrated to New York with his family. Evgeni’s letters to Andrei and Andrei’s narrative of his father’s life intertwine, creating a portrait of the man and a particular moment in Soviet culture.
DIRECTOR ANDREI ZAGDANSKY WILL ATTEND.

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preceded by

Three Promises
World Premiere

Edward Serotta | Serbia/USA | 2011 | 19m

Categories: Documentary, Holocaust, Short Film

Through family photographs, sisters Breda and Matilda Kalef take us into the world of Sephardic pre-World War II Serbia and the dramatic story of their flight to safety. The family photo album, containing 169 pictures, remained in Belgrade. When the Kalefs returned after the war, the album was still there, but nearly all those in it had been killed.

Remembrance
New York Premiere

Anna Justice | Germany | 2011 | 105m

Categories: Drama, Germany, Holocaust, Romance

Buy Tickets: Mon Jan 16: 6:00pm
Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 17: 3:15pm

Inspired by actual events, Remembrance depicts a remarkable love story that blossomed in the terror and squalor of a Nazi concentration camp in 1944 Poland. In a daring escape, Tomasz, a young Polish prisoner, rescues his Jewish lover, Hannah. In the chaos of the end of the war, they are forcibly separated and each is convinced that the other has died. More than 30 years later in New York City, Hannah believes she has seen her Tomasz interviewed on television and she begins to search for him again. Anna Justice (Max Minsky and Me, NYJFF 2009) directs this powerful and artfully crafted drama.
SCREENWRITER PAM KATZ AND ACTOR DAVID RASCHE WILL ATTEND JAN 16 SCREENING.

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Torn

Ronit Kertsner | Israel | 2011 | 72m

Categories: Documentary, Israel, Poland

Buy Tickets: Tue Jan 17: 6:00pm [at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center]
Buy Tickets: Wed Jan 18: 1:00pm

Can one be a Catholic priest and an observant Jew at the same time? Twelve years after he was ordained as a priest, Romuald Waszkinel discovers that he was born to Jewish parents. This powerful documentary by Ronit Kertsner (The Secret, NYJFF 2002) follows his amazing journey from conducting mass in a church in Poland to life as an observant Jew on a religious kibbutz in Israel. Romuald is torn between two identities. Unable to renounce either one, he finds himself rejected by both religions and the State of Israel.

preceded by

The Moon Is Jewish
New York Premiere

Michal Tkaczynski | Poland | 2011 | 45m

Categories: Documentary, Poland

Pawel was a skinhead in Warsaw, obsessed with soccer and violence, when his girlfriend discovered he had Jewish ancestry. He underwent a complete spiritual and physical transformation and is now an Orthodox Jew. This compelling documentary, which takes its title from provocative poet Marcin Swietlicki, tells an extraordinary story of identity and belonging.