JAN 9 – 22, 2019 NYJFF.ORG

Presented by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln SCHEDULE Center are delighted to continue their partnership to bring you the 28th annual New York Jewish Film Festival, WED, JAN 9 THU, JAN 17 12:30 pm Toman* 1 pm The Light of Hope* presenting films from around the world that explore the 4 pm Brussels Transit 3:30 pm Who Will Write Our History* 7:30 pm Promise at Dawn* (Opening Night) 6 pm The Light of Hope* diversity of Jewish experience. 8:30 pm Who Will Write Our History* THU, JAN 10 12:30 pm Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People* SAT, JAN 19 3 pm Promise at Dawn 7 pm Pat Steir: Artist* 6 pm Joseph Pulitzer: Voice of the People* 9:15 pm Life According to Agfa preceded by This year’s Festival presents a wonderful lineup of 8:30 pm Toman* Travelogue Tel Aviv narratives, documentaries, and shorts, from restored SAT, JAN 12 SUN, JAN 20 classics to world, U.S., and N.Y. premieres. 7 pm A Tramway in Jerusalem* 12:30 pm City Without Jews 9:30 pm Echo 2:45 pm Dear Fredy* preceded by Lon 4 pm Master Class with Yehonathan Indursky (Autonomies) – SUN, JAN 13 Amphitheater** Featuring Promise at Dawn, the epic drama starring 12:30 pm The Ancient Law* 5 pm The Tobacconist 3:45 pm A Tramway in Jerusalem* 8 pm Mack the Knife: Brecht’s 4:30 pm Panel Discussion: Pulitzer’s World: Threepenny Film Charlotte Gainsbourg and Pierre Niney; the thrilling The Role of the Media in a Fake News Universe – Amphitheater** Israeli miniseries Autonomies; and Fig Tree, a touching 6:15 pm Redemption* MON, JAN 21 — MLK DAY 9 pm Seder Masochism* 1 pm Mohamed and Anna: In Plain Sight* coming-of-age story set during the Ethiopian Civil War; preceded by Five Years After the War MON, JAN 14 3 pm Brussels Transit* the 2019 Festival includes a wide range of selections 1 pm Redemption* 5:30 pm Fig Tree* preceded by 3:45 pm Seder Masochism* A Thousand Kisses that will enthrall film lovers of all backgrounds. 6 pm Chasing Portraits * 8:30 pm Happiness of the World 8:15 pm Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story* preceded by Torch TUE, JAN 22 12:30 pm Fig Tree* preceded by TUE, JAN 15 A Thousand Kisses TICKET INFO 1 pm Black Honey: The Life and Poetry 3:15 pm Happiness of the World of Avraham Sutzkever* preceded by 5:45 pm Mohamed and Anna: In Plain Sight* ON SALE DATES TICKETS Triptych preceded by Members: December 20 Opening Night, Centerpiece, Closing Night 3:30 pm Camera Obscura* Five Years After the War General: December 27 $25 General Public 6 pm Black Honey: The Life and Poetry 8 pm A Fortunate Man* (Closing Night) $20 Jewish Museum and Film Society Members of Avraham Sutzkever* preceded by Tickets can be purchased: Triptych · NYJFF.org Festival Screenings 8:30 pm Camera Obscura* * Filmmaker or speaker present · Film Society of Lincoln Center box office: $15 General Public ** Panel Discussion and Master Class Tickets 165 W 65th St, NYC $12 Students, Seniors (62+), Persons with Free tickets will be distributed at the Elinor Disabilities WED, JAN 16 Bunin Munroe Film Center box office (144 West $10 Jewish Museum and Film Society Members 1 pm Chasing Portraits* 65th Street) on a first-come, first-served basis VENUES 3:30 pm Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story* starting one hour prior to the event. Limit one Film Society of Lincoln Center Panel Discussion and Master Class preceded by Torch ticket per person, subject to availability. Walter Reade Theater, 165 W 65th St Free; see opposite page for details. 6 pm Autonomies* presented with Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 W 65th St intermission (Centerpiece) OPENING NIGHT CENTERPIECE

N.Y. PREMIERE WED, JAN 9, 7:30 PM U.S. PREMIERE WED, JAN 16, 6 PM Promise at Dawn THU, JAN 10, 3 PM Autonomies (presented with intermission) Eric Barbier, France, 2017, 131 min. Yehonatan Indursky, Israel, 2018, 210 min. French with English subtitles Hebrew and Yiddish with English subtitles

The great Jewish novelist Romain Gary, also south of France, and most of all the Set in an alternate present where the state is television, turning out some of the finest known by the pen name Emile Ajar, was one unyielding love between him and his single brutally divided between the secular capital narrative storytelling in any medium, and of France’s most prolific and popular writers mother. The book’s drama and adventure of Tel Aviv and a Jerusalem governed by an we’ll screen all five episodes for a proper of the mid-20th century, and the only lend themselves naturally to the big screen; ultra-Orthodox “Haredi Autonomy,” this binge. Autonomies shows why Israel person to win the Prix Goncourt twice. His this adaptation by Eric Barbier, starring dystopian thriller tells the story of a wheeler- is fertile ground for powerful fiction: the autobiographical novel Promise at Dawn is a Charlotte Gainsbourg and Pierre Niney, is a dealer who smuggles contraband between series is a boiling cauldron of the issues loose memoir, recounting his impoverished rollicking journey through a life richly lived. the two regions and a little girl at the center of identity, religion, politics, and personal childhood in Poland, his time as a fighter of a secular-Orthodox custody battle. Israel freedom that define life in the country today. pilot in WWII, early relationships in the is experiencing a golden age of episodic

Autonomies

Master Class with Yehonatan Indursky

SUN, JAN 20, 4 PM Free and Open to the Public

Join Yehonatan Indursky, writer and which won 11 awards from the Israeli Promise at Dawn director of NYJFF Centerpiece selection Academy of Television including Best Autonomies, for a master class on writing, Screenplay), Indursky will focus on directing, and producing for television and the difference between creating for film. A writer and director of multiple films film and television, and the process and television series (such as Shtisel, behind Autonomies.

4 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG 5 CLOSING NIGHT MAIN SLATE FILMS

N.Y. PREMIERE TUE, JAN 22, 8 PM The Ancient Law In a shtetl in Galicia, the son of a rabbi A Fortunate Man Ewald André Dupont, Germany, 1923, 135 min. gets a bug for acting and is swept into a Bille August, Denmark, 2018, 162 min. Silent (with English intertitles) glamorous lifestyle, much to the chagrin Danish with English subtitles SUN, JAN 13, 12:30 PM of his more traditional father. Featuring a new score and live accompaniment by A gifted but self-destructive young man A sprawling story of grand scope and high pianist Donald Sosin and klezmer violinist leaves his suffocating Lutheran upbringing romance from the Academy Award–winning Alicia Svigals. in the country for the metropolitan director of Pelle the Conqueror, A Fortunate Copenhagen of the 1880s. An engineer Man is a rare kind of film—beautifully with progressive ideas, he is welcomed realized, full of exceptional performances, by a wealthy Jewish family and insinuates and with a dramatic sweep on par with the himself into their opulent milieu, embarking great classics of cinema. on a journey of personal and professional ambition that teeters on the razor’s edge between triumph and catastrophe.

The Ancient Law

N.Y. PREMIERE The Russian-born poet Avraham Sutzkever Black Honey: The Life & Poetry wrote in Yiddish with wit and vitality through of Avraham Sutskever the Holocaust, saved hundreds of Jewish Uri Barbash, Israel, 2018, 76 min. Hebrew, manuscripts from destruction, and testified English, and Yiddish with English subtitles at the Nuremberg trials. His story is a TUE, JAN 15, 1 & 6 PM life-affirming exemplar of 20th century Jewish experience. Preceded By

N.Y. PREMIERE Using live action, animation, vintage Triptych artifacts, and photographs, director Katia A Fortunate Man Katia Lom, U.K., 2018, 8 min. English Lom explores her family’s history—including their escape from Czechoslovakia in 1951.

6 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG 7 U.S. PREMIERE In one of the first postwar films in Yiddish, N.Y. PREMIERE This 1924 silent masterpiece is one of few OF THE RESTORATION director Samy Szlingerbaum masterfully OF THE RESTORATION surviving Austrian Expressionist films and Brussels Transit weaves together the dramatic story of his The City Without Jews a chilling premonition of the Holocaust. Samy Szlingerbaum, Belgium, 1980, 80 min. parents’ search for a home and haunting Hans Karl Breslauer, Austria, 1924, 91 min. Based on Hugo Bettauer’s dystopian novel Yiddish and French with English subtitles footage of postwar Brussels to explore the Silent (with English Intertitles) of the same name, it follows the rise of the WED, JAN 9, 4 PM marginality of young Holocaust survivors in SUN, JAN 20, 12:30 PM Christian Social Party, which orders all Jews MON, JAN 21, 3 PM Europe after WWII. to evacuate Austria.

N.Y. PREMIERE This documentary tells the story of Fredy Camera Obscura Shot on location in the lush forests, Dear Fredy Hirsch, a remarkable openly gay German Maria Victoria Menis, Argentina, 2008, 86 min. lagoons, and rivers of Buenos Aires Rubi Gat, Israel, 2017, 74 min. Hebrew, Jew who fled to the Czech Republic when Spanish and Yiddish with English subtitles province in a wondrous mélange of visual Czech, and English with English subtitles the Nuremberg Laws were passed, became TUE, JAN 15, 3:30 & 8:30 PM styles, Camera Obscura tells the story of SUN, JAN 20, 2:45 PM head of the youth department in the Ghetto an immigrant woman whose encounter Terezin, and set up a daycare center in his with an itinerant photographer reveals final, tragic days in Auschwitz. a sense of self she never knew. Preceded By

Lon The inner life of a Belgian Jewish set Nina Landau, Belgium, 2018, 7 min. designer, whose survival in a Nazi transit Dutch with English subtitles camp was fueled by the power of the human imagination, is given animated form in this arresting and beautiful short.

Camera Obscura

N.Y. PREMIERE After the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Chasing Portraits artist Moshe Rynecki left his collection Dear Fredy Elizabeth Rynecki, USA/Canada/Israel/ of more than 800 paintings and Poland, 2018, 78 min. English and Polish sculptures with friends around Warsaw N.Y. PREMIERE In this beautifully acted drama starring with English subtitles for safekeeping. But after his death in Echo Yael Abecassis and Yoram Toledano, a MON, JAN 14, 6 PM Majdanek, his work was dispersed. This Amikam Kovner & Assaf Snir man suspects his wife of infidelity and WED, JAN 16, 1 PM documentary tells the compelling story Israel, 2018, 98 min. Hebrew with records her phone conversations. While he of his great-granddaughter Elizabeth’s English subtitles obsessively listens, she tragically dies in a quest to uncover the story of his SAT, JAN 12 9:30 PM car crash and the recordings become an extraordinary collection. investigation into a life he thought he knew.

8 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG 9 U.S. PREMIERE Israeli writer Etgar Keret is beloved and N.Y. PREMIERE It’s the summer of 1939 and Rose, a Etgar Keret: renowned for his surreal, delightful short Happiness of the World beautiful young Jewish woman, has three Based on a True Story stories. In this quirky portrait, filmmakers Michal Rosa, Poland, 2016, 98 min. aggressive suitors, a Pole, a Silesian, and Stephane Kaas, The Netherlands, 2017, 67 min. Stephane Kaas and Rutger Lemm journey Polish with English subtitles a German in an apartment building on the English and Hebrew with English subtitles deep into the young writer’s past and MON, JAN 21, 8:30 PM Polish-German border. This enchanting film MON, JAN 14, 8:15 PM motivations. TUE, JAN 22, 3:15 PM follows them in their quixotic and comic WED, JAN 16, 3:30 PM days leading up to WWII.

Preceded By N.Y. PREMIERE Joseph Pulitzer began as a penniless U.S. PREMIERE A creative and quirky teenage girl in Joseph Pulitzer: Jewish immigrant from Hungary and Torch Jerusalem who loses her father in a terror Voice of the People grew into one of America’s most admired Odeya Rosnak, Israel, 2017, 17 min. attack attends a torch lighting ceremony at Oren Rudavsky, USA, 2018, 85 min. English and feared media figures. This revelatory Hebrew with English subtitles a local community center with her mother THU, JAN 10, 12:30 & 6 PM documentary tells the story of the man on Memorial Day, an event that becomes a behind the prize, who spoke of “fake poignant moment of self-discovery. news” and the importance of freedom of the press over a century ago. His U.S. PREMIERE Mina is 16 years old and has lived with her newspaper The New York World spoke to Fig Tree brother and grandmother in the midst of an unprecedented number of readers and Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian, Israel/Germany/ the Ethiopian Civil War her entire life, but maintained powerful journalistic ideals France/Ethiopia, 2018, 93 min. Amharic they are planning to flee for Israel. Mina is through its ascent. with English subtitles spending her last days in Addis Ababa with MON, JAN 21, 5:30 PM her Christian boyfriend Eli, who has been TUE, JAN 22, 12:30 PM hiding in the woods to avoid being drafted Panel Discussion: into Mengistu Haile Mariam’s army. This Pulitzer’s World: The Role of the tender and poignant coming-of-age film is Media In a Fake News Universe based on director Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian’s own experience. SUN, JAN 13, 4:30 PM Preceded By Presented in conjunction with the NYJFF conversation about press issues that U.S. PREMIERE In this animated short, a young Jewish Main Slate selection Joseph Pulitzer: Voice percolate through the film, such as first A Thousand Kisses couple in 1933 Berlin must separate, so they of the People. Join Jami Floyd, Host of amendment rights and limits; the future Richard Goldgewicht make plans to reunite on the safe tropical “All Things Considered” on WNYC; Adam of investigative reporting; crusading Brazil/Ireland/Uruguay/USA, 2018, 16 min. shores of Brazil. Moss, Editor-in-Chief of New York journalism and “click-bait” sensationalism; English and German with English subtitles magazine; filmmaker Oren Rudavsky; and and the relationship between the first Jodi Rudoren, Associate Managing Editor, page and the editorial page. The New York Times for a multifaceted

U.S. PREMIERE The Light of Hope is based on the true The Light of Hope story of Elisabeth Eidenbenz, director of Silvia Quer, Spain 2017, Spanish, the Elne maternity home. During WWII, Catalan, French, 96 min. Eidenbenz and her female co-workers THU, JAN 17, 1 & 6 PM saved the lives of 600 infants by providing humane conditions for pregnant women fleeing Vichy refugee camps.

Fig Tree

10 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG 11 U.S. PREMIERE In this touchstone of Israeli cinema, an WORLD PREMIERE A warmly intimate portrait of the Life According to Agfa assortment of Tel Aviv citizenry—Jews, Pat Steir: Artist groundbreaking painter and feminist Assi Dayan, Israel, 1992, 100 min. Arabs, kibbutzniks, city-dwellers, and Veronica Gonzalez Peña Pat Steir, whose life and practice have Hebrew with English subtitles soldiers—gather in a bar to play out USA, 2018, 74 min. English been enlivened for half a century by her SAT, JAN 19, 9:15 PM a series of bitter and ultimately tragic SAT, JAN 19, 7 PM deep friendships and alliances with the dramas over the course of one night. most influential artists and poets of Preceded By her generation. N.Y. PREMIERE A Swiss art student studying abroad Travelogue Tel Aviv captures Tel Aviv’s vitality and boldness Samuel Patthey, Switzerland, 2017, 6 min. in this vibrant, impressionistic animation. N.Y. PREMIERE Once the front man of a popular rock band, Redemption Menachem is now deeply religious. When Joseph Madmony & Boaz Yehonatan Yacov his six-year-old daughter is diagnosed with Israel, 2018, 104 min. cancer, he gets the band back together for Hebrew with English subtitles a reunion tour to pay the bills. SUN, JAN 13, 6:15 PM MON, JAN 14, 1 PM

N.Y. PREMIERE Animator Nina Paley brings us a wildly Seder Masochism playful and imaginative retelling of the Nina Paley, USA, 2018, 78 min. Book of Exodus in musical form. Life According to Agfa English, French, Bulgarian, Hebrew, and Aramaic The Burning Bush does a rendition of with English subtitles Louis Armstrong and Pharaoh sings U.S. PREMIERE After the premiere of Bertolt Brecht, SUN, JAN 13, 9 PM “I Will Survive,” among other antics. Mack the Knife: Elisabeth Hauptmann, and Kurt Weill’s MON, JAN 14, 3:45 PM Brecht’s Threepenny Film Threepenny Opera in 1928, the work Joachim Lang, Germany, 2018, 130 min. seemed destined for the silver screen: German with English subtitles Brecht sought to make a socially SUN, JAN 20, 8 PM conscious film, but the studio wanted a crowd pleaser. This fantastical and theatrical satire dramatizes his valiant attempt to adapt his opera to the screen.

U.S. PREMIERE During WWII, Mohamed Helmy, an Mohamed and Anna: Egyptian doctor living in Berlin, saved a In Plain Sight Jewish woman from capture by the Nazis Taliya Finkel, Germany/Israel, 2017, by disguising her as a Muslim woman. 58 min. English This astounding documentary uncovers MON, JAN 21, 1 PM the many extraordinary maneuvers and TUE. JAN 22, 5:45 PM deceptions he took to save her life, at great risk to his own. Preceded By

U.S. PREMIERE This animated short brings to explosive, Five Years After the War exuberant life the wild fantasies of a Samuel Albaric & Martin Wiklund, France, Parisian man—the son of an absent 2017, 17 min. French with English subtitles Iraqi father and a Jewish mother—who is confounded by the modern world Seder Masochism and trying to find his place in it. 12 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG 13 U.S. PREMIERE A young tobacco shop apprentice in The Tobacconist Nazi occupied Vienna falls in love with a FUNDERS Nikolaus Leytner, Germany, 2018, music hall dancer and turns to Sigmund German, 108 min. Freud, a regular customer and unlikely The New York Jewish Film Festival is made Additional support is provided by Office of SUN, JAN 20, 5 PM new friend, for advice in this beautifully possible by the Martin and Doris Payson Cultural Affairs - Consulate General of Israel realized wartime drama staring Bruno Fund for Film and Media. in New York, the German Consulate General Ganz as Sigmund Frued. New York, Cultural Services of the French Generous support is also provided by Embassy in the United States, the Polish Wendy Fisher and Dennis Goodman, Cultural Institute New York, and Czech U.S. PREMIERE Zdenek Toman is a controversial and Sara and Axel Schupf, The Liman Foundation, Center New York. Toman singular character in modern Czech politics. Louise and Frank Ring, an anonymous gift, Ondřej Trojan, Czech Republic/Slovakia, Toman tells the story of the unscrupulous the Ike, Molly and Steven Elias Foundation, 2018, 145 min. Czech with English subtitles careerist and politician who was also the Amy and Howard Rubenstein, Robin and WED, JAN 9, 12:30 PM unlikely savior of thousands of Jewish Danny Greenspun, Steven and Sheira THU, JAN 10, 8:30 PM refugees after WWII. Schacter, and through public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo U.S. PREMIERE A series of poignant and humorous and the New York State Legislature and A Tramway in Jerusalem encounters along the Light Rail Red Line, the New York City Department of Cultural Amos Gitai, Israel/France, 2018, 94 min. which connects Jerusalem from east to west Affairs in partnership with City Council. Hebrew, Arabic, French, English, and German from Palestinian to Israeli neighborhoods, with English subtitles reveal the city’s diverse mosaic of humanity The Film Society of Lincoln Center receives generous support from the below sponsors. SAT, JAN 12, 7 PM and offer a kernel of hope for mutual SUN, JAN 13, 3:45 PM understanding. With Mathieu Amalric.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center receives additional support for the New York Jewish Film Festival from the Jack & Pearl Resnick Foundation.

SELECTION COMMITTEE

This year’s New York Jewish Film Festival and Aviva Weintraub, Associate Curator, was selected by Rachel Chanoff, Director, the Jewish Museum and Director, New THE OFFICE performing arts + film; Gabriel York Jewish Film Festival; with Dennis Lim, Grossman, Coordinator, New York Jewish Director of Programming, Film Film Festival/the Jewish Museum; Miriam Society of Lincoln Center, as adviser. Niedergang, short film curatorial consultant;

A Tramway in Jerusalem ACKNOWLEDGMENTS N.Y. PREMIERE When the Nazis created the Warsaw Who Will Write Our History Ghetto, a group of scholars, journalists, Nicola Galliner, Jewish Film Festival Berlin & Brandenburg; Béatrice Godlewicz, Institute of Audiovisual Roberta Grossman, Poland/USA, 2018, 95 min. and community leaders, led by historian Jewish Memory, Brussels; Eric Goldman, Ergo Media; Stuart Hands, Toronto Jewish Film Festival; Annette English, Polish, and Yiddish with English subtitles Emanuel Ringelblum, conducted a secret Insdorf, Columbia University; Judy Ironside, UK Jewish Film Festival; Marlene Josephs, Volunteer; Linda THU, JAN 17, 3:30 & 8:30 PM effort to document the fate of the 450,000 Lipson, Volunteer; Nicola Mazzanti, Royal Film Archive of Belgium; Joshua Moore, San Francisco Jewish Jews sealed within. These testimonies Film Festival; Richard Peña, Columbia University; Ben Rubin, Intern; Eve Sicular; Melissa Tincopa, Intern comprise perhaps the most important The Jewish Museum is under the auspices of The Jewish Theological Seminary. archive of original material compiled by Jews during the Holocaust. 14 15 THE JEWISH MUSEUM Non-Profit Org. 1109 Fifth Avenue U.S. Postage New York, N.Y. 10128 PAID Under the auspices of New York, NY The Jewish Theological Seminary. Permit No. 7131 TICKETS: NYJFF.ORG

Cover Image: Mack the Knife: Brecht’s Threepenny Film