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The Jester Press Release The Lown Building 102, MS 053 Telephone: (781) 899-7044 National Center Brandeis University Fax: (781) 736-2070 for Waltham Massachusetts Email: [email protected] Jewish Film 02454-9110 www.jewishfilm.org FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Lisa Rivo 781-736-8600 [email protected] World Premiere of the Newly-Restored 1937 Yiddish Feature Film THE JESTER at the Jerusalem International Film Festival, July 16 Film Includes Rare Color Toned Scenes WALTHAM, MA (26 June 2008) -- The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) announces the 35mm film restoration of the 1937 Yiddish-language feature film THE JESTER (Der Purimspiler). The newly-restored print will have its World Premiere at the Jerusalem International Film Festival on Wednesday, July 16 at 6:00 pm at Beit Shmuel, 6 Eliahu Shama St, Jerusalem. (Confirm screening details at www.jff.org.il) Sharon Pucker Rivo, Executive Director of NCJF, located at Brandeis University, will present the film in Jerusalem. The premiere of THE JESTER will be the 18th consecutive year that NCJF has brought a film from its collection to the Jerusalem International Film Festival. THE JESTER is the 37th Yiddish feature film restored by NCJF. Following its world premiere, the film will be available for festival and public performance screenings and dvd purchase. ABOUT THE JESTER (Der Purimspiler) Poland, 1937, 90 minutes, b&w/sepia tone/blue tone, Yiddish w/ new English subtitles Set in a Galician shtetl before World War I, this musical comedy is rich with itinerant performers and star- crossed lovers. Negotiating the romantic rapids are a lonely jester, a circus performer, and Esther, the shoemaker's daughter, whose poor father tries to marry her into a prominent family. The intrigue climaxes with a Purim shpil (Purim play) and its parade of costumes, buffoonery, and music. Directors Joseph Green (YIDDLE WITH HIS FIDDLE, MAMELE, & A LETTER TO MOTHER, previously restored by NCJF) and Jan Nowina-Przybylski filmed on location on a farm near Warsaw and in Kazimierz. The film’s lively circus and vaudeville music and set pieces offer a taste of Warsaw’s then- thriving Yiddish revues and cabarets. Green, who had emigrated from Poland to America in 1924, returned to Poland with the American Yiddish theater stars (and then-married couple) Miriam Kressyn and Hymie Jacobson for the production. Many of the film’s Polish-Jewish crew and actors perished during the Holocaust. The film premiered in Warsaw in September 1937 and opened in New York City three months later at the Cameo Theater. Another important historical note: In 1941, the Nazis appropriated a segment from the Purim play scene of THE JESTER for use in their notorious antisemitic propaganda film DER EWIGE JUDE (THE ETERNAL JEW). RESTORATION OF THE JESTER NCJF’s 35mm restoration of THE JESTER involved an expensive and labor-intensive process accomplished, under NCJF’s direction, by Cinema Arts, Inc, NCJF’s primary lab for over thirty years. Restoration was achieved using two original 1937 nitrate prints of the film, one of which contained six color toned scenes. The color toned sections—four in sepia and two in blue—total 27 minutes of the film, or one third of THE JESTER’s running time. Color toning—employed for creating mood and enhancing narrative—was often utilized for silent films, it was, however, extremely rare for sound films especially for Page 1 of 2 independent productions. Because there are no subtitles on the original prints, it was possible for NCJF to create a completely new subtitle track. A new English translation was commissioned and a separate subtitle track was prepared, allowing for newly preserved materials to be archived in their original form. Joseph Green, the producer/director and owner of the film donated THE JESTER with all rights to The National Center for Jewish Film in 1989. In recent years, only inferior and incomplete copies of the film have been available in poor quality video. Preservation and restoration of THE JESTER was made possible by grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation, Jules Bernstein and Linda Lipsett, the Eastman Kodak Company, and The Nation Center for Jewish Film’s Reel Funders, with support from Brandeis University and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. CRITICAL ACCLAIM FOR THE JESTER “A wistful romance that’s interspersed with songs but rooted in the wisecracks and banter of Yiddish culture.” – J. Hoberman, The Village Voice “An incomparable window into the world of Jewish Eastern Europe in the 1930s, where the rich folk- culture of the shtetl and ghetto meet the urbane sophistication of contemporary European society. Tap dancing, an old-fashioned Purim play, and a love scene in the park...THE JESTER truly has it all!” – Hankus Netsky, Director, Klezmer Conservatory Band FILM CREDITS THE JESTER Directors: Joseph Green & Jan Nowina-Przybylski Screenplay: Joseph Green & Chaver-Paver (Gershon Einbinder) Dialogue & Lyrics: Itzik Manger Music: Nicholas Brodsky Cast: Miriam Kressyn, Hymie Jacobson, Zygmunt Turkow, Isaac Samberg, Max Bozyk 2008 Film Restoration & New English Subtitles: The National Center for Jewish Film SCREENERS & PHOTOS AVAILABLE For more information call 781.736.8600 ABOUT THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR JEWISH FILM The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) is a unique nonprofit film archive, distributor, and resource center, housing the largest collection of Jewish-theme film and video in the world, outside of Israel. NCJF exclusively owns 10,000 reels of feature films, documentaries, shorts, newsreels, home movies, and institutional films, dating from 1903 to the present. NCJF’s first priority is the preservation and restoration of rare and endangered film materials. NCJF holds the largest existing collection of Yiddish feature films and has long been recognized and honored as the world leader in the revival of Yiddish cinema, having rescued these invaluable cultural and artistic artifacts from oblivion. To date, NCJF has restored 37 Yiddish feature films, including TEVYE, THE DYBBUK, and GREEN FIELDS, as well as dozens of other “orphan” films that document the diversity and vibrancy of Jewish life past and present. In addition to its own restored materials, NCJF represents the work of 200 independent filmmakers, distributing their films to film festivals, institutions, and individuals. www.jewishfilm.org Page 2 of 2 .
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