FEBRUARY 2 - 21 • 2019 CINCINNATI • OHIO PROGRAM BOOK CELEBRATE 30 YEARS OF CINCINNATI’S JEWISH & ISRAELI FILM FESTIVAL AND 10 YEARS OF THE FESTIVAL AS A PROGRAM OF THE MAYERSON JCC! WELCOME Award-winning films from around the world will light up screens across Cincinnati during this popular month-long festival. This year’s slate This year we are celebrating 30 years of Cincinnati’s Jewish & of films will explore significant topics as seen through the lens of the Israeli Film Festival. As we also mark 10 years of the festival as individual or the few. a program of the Mayerson JCC, we cannot help but look back over the years. We find such great film and community marked PERSONAL. IMPACTFUL. HUMAN. by these anniversaries. This celebration of film, storytelling, What seems unlikely or insurmountable can be challenged. and learning has grown over the years into what you are Join us to celebrate the humanity in these stories. experiencing today. We continue to work hard to select films that tell interesting stories, bring in speakers that expand our AN ACT OF DEFIANCE DEAR FREDY GOOD THOUGHTS, understanding, and create community. We’re so grateful to our OPENING NIGHT PAGE 22 GOOD WORDS, GOOD generous sponsors who enable us to dream a little bigger and PAGE 4 DEEDS: expand the Festival each year. SHELTER THE CONDUCTOR ZUBIN BUDAPEST NOIR PAGE 26 MEHTA PAGE 6 The Film Festival allows us to meet you outside of the walls of WHO WILL WRITE OUR PAGE 39 KEEP THE CHANGE HISTORY? HEADING HOME: our JCC. We are so glad to have you join us across the city to PAGE 9 THE SECRET ARCHIVE OF THE THE TALE OF TEAM ISRAEL celebrate Jewish and Israeli film. WARSAW GHETTO CLOSING NIGHT THE LAST SUIT PAGE 29 PAGE 13 PAGE 43 We are offering this program book as a resource to guide you THE INVISIBLES PARKING & VENUE through the festival. Use it to learn about the films and stories WINTER HUNT PAGE 34 PAGE 16 INFORMATION told on screen. Please note it may contain spoilers and outcomes WHEN THE SMOKE PAGE 48 ETGAR KERET: from the films. Keep it as a memento of your experience at the CLEARS: A STORY OF SPONSORS BASED ON A TRUE STORY 2019 Mayerson JCC Jewish & Israeli Film Festival! BROTHERHOOD, RESILIENCE PAGE 50 PAGE 19 AND HOPE PAGE 36 Frances Kahan Stacey Schimberg Marc Fisher Cultural Arts Manager Committee Chair Mayerson JCC CEO For questions or more information, please email [email protected] or call 513.722.7258. These films are not rated and are recommended for mature audiences. Times listed include length of films only. FILM EXTRAS DIRECTOR’S NOTE told me that from the moment the In 1963/1964, I was 7 years old, arrested prisoners first saw each growing up in Belgian Congo. We other, they decided three things: we thought very little of apartheid. That take responsibility for what we have was unknown. With us, there were no done; we accept every punishment, signs for "whites only." With us, black including the death penalty; and people were allowed to swim in the we are not going to appeal. Let us same swimming pool. be defiant! More than 50 years later, I was given We all stand on the shoulders of all a script for which producer Richard those people before us who have Claus had acquired the rights based given their hearts, their souls, their on the book, The State Versus Nelson salvation and, in many cases, their Mandela, written by lawyer Joel lives for our freedom and equality. Joffe. I was immediately interested – Jean Van De Velde in the defense of Nelson Mandela JEAN VAN DE VELDE and the trialists. I envisioned a Director courtroom drama, and a special look Born in 1957 in Bukavu at the process that could have been (in the former Belgian the start of a civil war and a violent Congo), Jean van de AN ACT OF DEFIANCE overthrow of a regime like that in many Velde grew up in the SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2 • 7PM • NATIONAL other African countries, such as Congo. tropics, went to secondary school UNDERGROUND RAILROAD FREEDOM CENTER As I dove deep into South African in the Netherlands and graduated history, one character came floating from school in 1974 in Utrecht, after to the surface: Bram Fischer, the which he studied at the Dutch Film 2019 JEWISH & ISRAELI JCC FILM FESTIVAL MAYERSON 2017 ∙ Historical Drama ∙ 123 minutes ∙ English/Afrikaans ∙ Jean Van De Velde leader of the lawyers’ team, from Academy in Amsterdam. In 1985, SYNOPSIS OPENING NIGHT includes one a famed Afrikaans family that had Jean van de Velde founded his own Ten political activists (including complimentary drink per person held high government posts. He company and wrote and directed a Nelson Mandela and his inner circle and enjoyment of a post-film lived in a large house with three large number of successful features of black and Jewish supporters) reception. growing children, happily married to for several producers including the a strong, smart woman. Secretly, he award-winning LEAK and ALL STARS. face a possible death sentence for Several paid parking options Jean van de Velde has been on the conspiracy to commit sabotage after are available. See page 48 was also president of the Forbidden board of several film organizations, they are arrested by the apartheid for all parking information. Communist Party, closely involved South African government in 1963. in the ANC and many underground including the Dutch Film Fund and activities aimed at overthrowing the Dutch Film Festival. As Intendant the white Apartheid government for the Dutch Film Fund, he was and creating an equal society. Bram responsible for developing and In partnership with the National Underground Railroad Freedom Fischer was leading a double life. guiding over 20 commercial features. Center as they celebrate Mandela 100 with their exhibit Currently he is chairman of the Dutch In my research, I also spoke with “Mandela: The Journey to Ubuntu,” on display until March 1. Screenwriters Guild and lives with his MAYERSON JCC JEWISH & ISRAELI FILM FESTIVAL 2019 2019 JEWISH & ISRAELI JCC FILM FESTIVAL MAYERSON Ahmed Kathrada, who had been wife in Utrecht. 4 the youngest of the convicts. He 5 Éva’s screenwriting and feature ABOUT THE NOVEL film directorial debut, An American Vilmos Kondor’s crime thriller Rhapsody, starred a young Scarlett Budapest Noir is a dark, riveting, Johansson. The film was based on and lightning-fast novel of murder, the events of Éva’s family escaping intrigue, and political corruption, set from Hungary in the 1950s and being in 1936 Hungary during the rise of forced to leave their infant child (Éva) Adolf Hitler and the Nazis in Germany. behind. Éva spent six years in Hungary Kondor’s remarkable debut brings with foster parents before rejoining this European city to life - as it follows her biological parents in America. crime reporter Zsigmond Gordon’s “I’m never sure which country I really investigation into the strange death belong to,” she says. “Perhaps both. of a beautiful woman. Gordon’s That is a feeling that only immigrants search for the truth leads him to can understand.” shocking revelations about a seedy After discovering the bestselling underground crime syndicate and its Hungarian novel, Budapest Noir, she corrupt political patrons. BUDAPEST NOIR returned to Hungary to develop and AWARDS MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4 • 7PM • ESQUIRE THEATRE direct the film version, “The minute • Best Original Score, Foreign I finished the novel, which I read in Language Film Hollywood Music English, I was determined to make this 2017 ∙ Crime Thriller ∙ 95 minutes ∙ Hungarian ∙ Éva Gárdos in Media Awards 2017 film. […] I loved the idea of Budapest SYNOPSIS brothels and Communist cells leading being a character of the film.” Budapest, 1936. Crime reporter to the highest echelons of power – Zsigmond Gordon, a cynic who not knowing who to trust, or what MAYERSON JCC thinks he has seen it all, gets a tip ulterior motives are working against leading him to an unusual crime him and the truth. DISABILITY INCLUSION scene in a seedy part of the city. SPECIAL FEATURE AWARENESS PROGRAMS 2019 JEWISH & ISRAELI JCC FILM FESTIVAL MAYERSON Investigating the murder, Gordon Short film screening of A Thousand FEBRUARY - NOVEMBER 2019 enters a world of pornographers, Kisses by Richard Goldgewicht. Mayerson JCC Inclusion Visions forAwareness Accessibility Programs in the 21st Century In partnership with Department of Judaic Studies – University of Cincinnati. A discussion withNeed Emily Artwork Seelenfreund and P.G. Sittenfeld April 1, 6:30 - 8:30pm; FREE with RSVP FILM EXTRAS Special Education Law and Advocacy A workshop with Carla Loon Leader ÉVA GÁRDOS She went on to establish a career as a April 8, 6:30 - 8:30pm; FREE with RSVP Director film editor working with distinguished directors such as Barbet Schroeder, Melodic Connections: Éva Gárdos is an award- Common Time Community Music Making winning film director and Peter Bogdanovich, and Anjelica May 19, 1pm; FREE with RSVP editor born in Hungary. Huston. “All of the films I worked She got her start in film working as a on had a dark side,” she recalls. “I’m production assistant on Francis Ford always attracted to books, movies, art Stay up-to-date on all upcoming Inclusion programs and music that are dangerous, oddly MAYERSON JCC JEWISH & ISRAELI FILM FESTIVAL 2019 2019 JEWISH & ISRAELI JCC FILM FESTIVAL MAYERSON Coppola’s epic Apocalypse Now in the beautiful and funny in weird ways.” MAYERSONJCC.ORG/INCLUSION 6 Philippines. 7 SHORT FILM: A THOUSAND KISSES 2018 ∙ Animation Short ∙ 16 minutes ∙ English ∙ Richard Goldgewicht SYNOPSIS including documentary, animation and Separated by the fear of persecution live action.