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THE FILM SOCIETY OF LINCOLN CENTER AND THE JEWISH MUSEUM ANNOUNCE DETAILS FOR SPECIAL PROGRAMS AT THE 25TH ANNUAL NEW YORK JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL January 13-26, 2016 Highlights include NYJFF at 25: A Retrospective series and anniversary exhibition of film posters, 20th anniversary screening of Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse, Master Class with Alan Berliner, Panel Discussion on Curating Film, and more NEW YORK, NY (December 11, 2015) – The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Jewish Museum will present the New York Jewish Film Festival at the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater and Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, January 13-26, 2016. This year’s 25th-anniversary edition will include a number of special programs, including a retrospective of film highlights from past festivals; an exhibition of posters from previous festival selections; a panel discussion bringing together some of New York’s finest film curators and programmers; a 20th-anniversary screening of Todd Solondz’s Welcome to the Dollhouse accompanied by the classic documentary Night and Fog, selected by Solondz; a Master Class on filmmaking by director Alan Berliner; continuous screenings of pivotal moments from 10 films seen in previous editions of the New York Jewish Film Festival; an evening of five shorts featuring such talents as Robert De Niro and Richard Kind; and an online anniversary publication looking back over the first 25 years of the festival. See below for the full festival schedule. The New York Jewish Film Festival is one of the oldest and most influential Jewish film festivals worldwide, unique in New York City, and one of the longest-running partnerships between two major New York cultural institutions. Since its founding in 1992, the NYJFF has presented more than 675 films from 43 countries, of which 320 were world, U.S., or New York premieres, and many have gone on to win awards and gain wider distribution. 1 SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS NYJFF at 25: A Retrospective This series of 10 films from previous editions of the New York Jewish Film Festival marks the silver anniversary of the festival, ranging from the silent film Benya Krik to works from such acclaimed directors as Amos Gitai and the late Chantal Akerman. Benya Krik Vladimir Vilner, USSR, 1926, 35mm, 90m Silent with English intertitles and live musical accompaniment by Peter Freisinger Vladimir Vilner’s classic film is set in the Jewish area of Moldavanka in Odessa, where the local gangster king Benya Krik rules with an iron fist. Based on the real-life gangster Mishka “Mike the Jap” Vinnitsky, Krik revels in murder and leverages his power into tremendous profit. When the Russian Revolution begins, the local commissioner attempts to put Krik’s gang to work as a revolutionary regiment, complete with tattooed red stars. Ultimately, Krik finds himself ensnared in a Bolshevik trap—and mystery and intrigue ensue. Restoration and English intertitles by the National Center for Jewish Film. This special event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition The Power of Pictures: Early Soviet Photography, Early Soviet Film, on view through February 7 at the Jewish Museum. Saturday, January 23, 7:00pm The Castle Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany, 1997, DCP, 123m German with English subtitles The Castle is the unfinished, final novel by Franz Kafka, arguably the 20th century’s most influential Jewish writer. With extraordinary fidelity to Kafka’s original language and tone, Austrian director Michael Haneke has adapted the work for the big screen, complete with a star-studded cast made up of Haneke regulars. A land surveyor known only as K is summoned to a remote mountain village by the local government. Upon arrival, he is denied entrance and faces an increasingly obstructive provincial bureaucracy. Haneke masterfully evokes Kafka’s vision of a dystopian society hobbled by paperwork and bled dry by conformism and convolution. Monday, January 18, 9:00pm Holy Week Andrzej Wajda, Poland/Germany/France, 1995, 35mm, 97m Polish with English subtitles As the Warsaw Ghetto burns, a Jewish woman seeks sanctuary with a former boyfriend on the Christian side of the city. Andrzej Wajda’s adaptation of Jerzy Andrzejewski’s short story Holy Week is an inquiry into the relationship between Polish Christians and Polish Jews during World War II. If Jan hides Irena in his home, he will be committing a crime for which the sentence in Nazi-occupied Poland is death for the perpetrator and his family. His humanitarian nature still shines through, and the two forge a tense but caring new chapter in their deeply rooted relationship. Sunday, January 17, 9:30pm 2 Left Luggage Jeroen Krabbé, USA/Netherlands/Belgium, 1998, 35mm, 100m English, Hebrew, and Yiddish with English subtitles Set in 1970s Belgium, Left Luggage tells the story of Chaya (Laura Fraser), the 20-year- old daughter of Holocaust survivors who studies philosophy and lives a bohemian existence in Antwerp. When Chaya takes a job as a nanny for a Hasidic family, her developing friendship with the devout mother forces her to reevaluate the Jewish faith. This clear-eyed look at Hasidism and its relationship with Judaism as a whole also stars Isabella Rossellini, actor-director Jeroen Krabbé, and Topol, and was the winner of three awards at the Berlin International Film Festival. Tuesday, January 26, 1:00pm & 6:15pm Lost Embrace Daniel Burman, Argentina/France/Italy, 2004, 35mm, 99m Spanish, Korean, Yiddish, and Russian with English subtitles Argentinean director Daniel Burman’s coming-of-age ensemble film is a warm and amusing story of self-actualization and familial ties. Ariel Makaroff, a Jewish twentysomething in Buenos Aires, has left his architectural studies, unmotivated to do anything but wander through a rundown shopping mall. Ever since his father went missing, his mother and brother have worked in a lingerie shop. In hopes of a fresh start, Ariel decides he wants to move to Poland, and asks his grandmother, ex-girlfriend, and rabbi for help. Winner of two Silver Bear awards at the 2004 Berlin Film Festival. Sunday, January 17, 6:45pm Mahler on the Couch Percy Adlon & Felix O. Adlon, Austria/Germany, 2010, DCP, 98m German with English subtitles Percy Adlon, the acclaimed director of Bagdad Cafe, teamed up with his son Felix for this portrait of the great composer Gustav Mahler and his tempestuous relationship with his wife, Alma. Chafing under an agreement to give up her own musical ambitions, Alma begins an affair with the young architect Walter Gropius, as Mahler consults with Sigmund Freud on matters of creativity and passion. Moving, funny, and filled with Mahler’s sublime music (conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen), Mahler on the Couch is a sensory feast based on actual encounters between Mahler and Freud. Monday, January 18, 1:30pm News from House / News from Home Amos Gitai, Israel/France/Belgium, 2006, DCP, 97m English, Arabic, Hebrew, and French with English subtitles A house in West Jerusalem was for decades a microcosm of a city in conflict: abandoned by its Palestinian owner in the 1948 war; then requisitioned by the Israeli government as vacant; rented to Jewish Algerian immigrants in 1956; and, finally, purchased by a university professor who undertook its transformation into a three-story house in 1980. While its inhabitants have now dispersed and the common space has disintegrated, the structure remains both an emotional and a physical center at the heart of the Israeli- 3 Palestinian situation. Here, renowned filmmaker Amos Gitai uncovers the multilayered human history of this remarkable place. Sunday, January 17, 4:15pm Nobody’s Business Alan Berliner, USA, 1996, Digital projection, 60m Acclaimed New York filmmaker Alan Berliner took on his reclusive father as the reluctant subject of this poignant documentary, and what emerged was this cinematic biography that finds both humor and pathos in the swirl of conflicts and affections that bind father and son. Berliner weaves together archival footage and interviews with relatives in his quest to understand this complex and troubled character. Ultimately, Nobody’s Business serves as a meeting of the minds, where generations collide and the boundaries of family relationships are pushed to the brink. Screening with: Intimate Stranger Alan Berliner, USA, 1991, Digital projection, 60m Alan Berliner’s maternal grandfather is the subject of his remarkable documentary from 1991. Joseph Cassuto was a Palestinian Jew, born in 1905 and raised in Egypt. After World War II, his fascination with Japanese culture blossomed into a lifelong love affair with the country, and he abandoned his family to live there and pursue miscellaneous business interests. Equal parts romantic adventurer and coldhearted shirker of familial responsibility, Cassuto is a riveting protagonist in this poetic and emotional jigsaw puzzle of family history. Sunday, January 24, 3:00pm Tomorrow We Move Chantal Akerman, France/Belgium, 2004, 35mm, 110m French with English subtitles The late Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman brings us an intellectual comedy about a mother and daughter who find themselves living together for the first time in decades. Charlotte, a freelance writer, invites her recently widowed mother, Catherine, to live in her apartment, and the ensuing clutter becomes a source of irritation and strife. When Catherine decides to revitalize her career as a piano teacher, the claustrophobia reaches new and absurd levels. Charlotte continues to pursue her desperate quest for peace as Tomorrow We Move develops into a slyly Jewish tale of rootlessness and familial burdens. Wednesday, January 20, 8:30pm NYJFF Shorts Program (TRT: 75m): Five concise stories come together in this program of short films. Dear God (Guy Nattiv & Erez Tadmor, Israel, 2014, 13m), whose co-director Nattiv also directed the 2012 NYJFF opening-night film Mabul, depicts a romantic Jerusalem through the eyes of Aaron, a simple man who guards the historic Western Wall.

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