literature film Spring 2013 art music dance learning ON THE COVER: AKA DOC POMUS An unlikely blues singer. You know his songs… 9th Now hear his story. Annual A Bottle in the Gaza Sea The Day I Saw Your Heart Besa: The Promise The Flat All In The Other Son Disobedience: The Sousa Mendes Story Remembrance Seymour Schwartz: Prisoners of War Home Movie The Last Flight of Petr Ginz Life in Stills Ordinary Miracles: The Cantor’s Son The Photo League’s New York Hitler’s Children AKA Doc Pomus Numbered Hava Nagila (The Movie) A FRESH SPIN ON DOCUMENTARY AND FEATURE FILMS WITH MEANINGFUL JEWISH / ISRAELI CONTENT MARCH 6 –17 elcome to the 9th Annual Houston Jewish Film Festival, a collaboration between the Evelyn Rubenstein Jewish Community Center of Houston and the Museum of Fine WArts, Houston, with Holocaust Museum Houston as a longstanding venue. A big thanks to our dedicated film committee volunteers, who spend dozens of hours screening films to select the best ones from around the world that tell stories of Jewish significance, with poignancy and creativity, and reflect the values that shape Jewish life. This year we are pleased to have two filmmakers and one actor to introduce their films and lead post-screening discussions. We are grateful to our underwriters, sponsors, community partners, and patrons for their generous support. Enjoy the Festival and spread the word! Barbara Bronstein, Chair 9th Diane Lee, Co-Chair Annual Doreen Joffe and Sharon Kagan, Honorary Chairs 2012-2013 Film Committee: Community Partners: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee Congregation Beth Yeshurun Sisterhood Neil Aussenberg Marisa Katz Congregation Or Ami Margie Beegle Eve Lapin Holocaust Museum Houston National Council of Jewish Women Nada Chandler David Mendel – Greater Houston Section Joyce Cramer Miriam Pacht United Orthodox Synagogues Yiddish Vinkel John Dreyfus Paula Siegel Shelby Goodman Stefani Twyford HJFF Staff: Amy Rahmani, ERJCC Sue Goott Helen Wils Marian Luntz, MFAH Ellen Hamburg Tamara Savage, HMH Supporters: Official Hotel of the ERJCC Tango & Malbec Fleischer Wines: The Jewish Jenny Tavor Restaurant A division of Mexcor Herald Voice Custom Catering Media Sponsor: 9th ANNUAL HOUSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL ||| MARCH 6 – 17 OPENING NIGHT A BOTTLE IN THE GAZA SEA BESA: THE PROMISE ALL IN (UNE BOUTEILLE À LA MER) (LA SUERTE EN TUS MANOS) Thursday, March 7 • 5:00 PM • ERJCC Wednesday, March 6 • 7:30 PM • ERJCC Directed by Rachel Goslins Thursday, March 7 • 7:30 PM • ERJCC Saturday, March 16 • 6:00 PM • MFAH USA, 2012, 86 min Directed by Daniel Burman Directed by Thierry Binisti English with subtitles Argentina, 2012, 107 min France, Israel, 2011, 99 min Documentary Spanish, French with English subtitles French, Hebrew, Arabic with English Drama subtitles “Besa,” a code of honor, requires Drama that all Albanians, most of whom are In this witty, romantic comedy, Uriel, Muslim, protect refugees. Rexhap a Jewish divorced father of two and “A gripping, unsentimental drama with Hoxho is the son of an Albanian Muslim a professional gambler is in the habit a lot of action and a pacifist message of who protected a Jewish family during of finessing his way through life. He hope and reconciliation. A Bottle in the the Holocaust and retained their prayer decides to get a vasectomy and enter Gaza Sea is must-viewing.’’ books after the family’s departure, as it into a new life of freedom and romance. —Montreal Gazette. was too dangerous for a Jewish family On the very day he decides to have the to travel with prayer books. Until the operation, his ex-girlfriend Gloria shows Tal is a 17-year-old French woman who fall of communism in 1991, Hoxho had up, having returned to Buenos Aires has settled in Jerusalem with her family. no way of searching for the family, after years of living in France. Uriel She writes a letter expressing her refusal but yet, he felt that “besa” demanded learns that a poker face may not be the to accept that only hatred can reign be- he find and return the books to their most effective way to pursue romance. tween Israelis and Palestinians. She slips rightful owners. His journey eventually the letter into a bottle, and her brother leads him and his son to Jerusalem, throws it into the sea near Gaza where documented by Jewish-American erjcchouston.org/filmfest he is carrying out his military service. A photographer Norman Gershman. mfah.org/film few weeks later, Tal receives an e-mail response from a mysterious “Gazaman,” a young Palestinian named Naïm. And thus begins a turbulent but tender long- DISOBEDIENCE: distance friendship between two young THE SOUSA MENDES STORY people who are separated by a history they are trying both to understand and Friday, March 8 • 1:00 PM • ERJCC change. Hiam Abbass (Lemon Tree) and Wednesday, March 13 • 7:30 PM • ERJCC Mahmoud Shalaby (Free Men; The Other Guest Speaker: Sousa Mendes Visa Son) star in this internet-age Romeo- Recipient Sarah Tanne Tillis and-Juliet drama set in a troubled re- Directed by Joël Santoni gion. Based on the award-winning novel France, 2008, 104 min by Valerie Zenatti. French with English subtitles Suitable for ages 15 and above. Drama Based on events in 1940 Bordeaux, this film tells the story of Portuguese Consul Sponsored by June and Leonard Goldberg Aristides de Sousa Mendes, who defied Dictator Antonio Salazar’s directive to forbid the entry of “undesirables,” particularly Jews, into Portugal. Against Salazar’s orders, Sousa Mendes issues approximately 30,000 Portuguese visas allowing people to escape to Portugal. This film is a portrait in courage, relaying the story of a man who chose to live by his convictions despite danger and hardship. After his death, Sousa Mendes was declared to be among the righteous of nations and posthumously promoted to the rank of Ambassador. Underwritten by The Maurice Amado Foundation 9th ANNUAL HOUSTON JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL ||| MARCH 6 – 17 Post-film discussion with Jon Schwartz SEYMOUR SCHWARTZ: THE LAST FLIGHT OF PETR GINZ ORDINARY MIRACLES: THE PHOTO HOME MOVIE LEAGUE’S NEW YORK Sunday, March 10 • 1:00 PM • MFAH Saturday, March 9 • 7:00 PM • MFAH Tuesday, March 12 • 2:00 PM • MFAH Sunday, March 10 • 3:00 PM • MFAH Guest Speakers: Filmmaker Jon Directed by Sandy Dickson Introduced by Anne Tucker Schwartz and Newton Schwartz Sr. and Churchill Roberts Directed by Daniel Allentuck USA, 2012, 66 min March 12 and Nina Rosenblum Directed by Jon Schwartz screening USA, 2012, 89 min English is free with USA, 2012, 74 min Museum A reception in the Documentary English English admission Museum galleries Documentary Film essay follows the screening. A story of celebration and tragedy, The A Houston story with universal appeal, Last Flight of Petr Ginz is a whimsical The story of the rise and politically this film essay is a character study and fantastical journey through one motivated fall of the Photo League, of the filmmaker’s father, as well as a boy’s imagination. Combining animation, (1936–1951) which for fifteen chronicle of a Houston Jewish family art, and live action, the documentary years served as the center of the spanning the 20th century. Interviews is a testament to how a boy’s creative documentary movement in American with the outspoken Seymour (1919- expression represents the best of what photography at a time when the camera 2008) frame a family history richly makes us human. By fourteen Petr Ginz was held to be, in James Agee’s words, illustrated by photographs, letters had written five novels and penned “the central instrument of our time.” and historical materials. The story is a diary about the Nazi occupation of The Photo League’s membership roster rounded out by poignant recollections of Prague. By sixteen he had produced included Sid Grossman, Aaron Siskind, Seymour’s marriage and unlikely role as more than 170 drawings and paintings, Jerome Liebling, Dan Weiner, Morris a community activist late in his life. 25 edited an underground magazine in Engel, Walter Rosenblum, Weegee, years after his first film, the acclaimed the Theresienstadt Ghetto, written Lisette Model, and W. Eugene Smith. documentary This Is Our Home: It Is numerous short stories, and had walked Ordinary Miracles is built around a Not For Sale about Houston’s Riverside to the gas chamber at Auschwitz. handpicked selection culled from neighborhood, Jon Schwartz delivers a hundreds of images, fashioned into riveting family portrait. sequences designed around various subjects of League focus (Harlem, the Lower East Side, children at play, Coney Island, WWII). The rich and evocative THE YELLOW TICKET: A live soundtrack is a blend of contemporary multimedia concert event featuring a and vintage music: The Mills Brothers, COMING THIS new score by violinist Alicia Svigals that The Ink Spots, Django Reinhardt, The reanimates a silent cinema classic. Set Andrews Sisters, Fats Waller, Coleman NOVEMBER Hawkins, and Philip Glass. in Poland and Tsarist Russia, the 1918 film – starring legendary actress Pola Negri – portrays a woman’s struggle to overcome adversity in a story of secret Bring your ticket identities, heroic measures, and trium- or pass to the café for 10% off. phant love. Svigals has crafted a lush THE YELLOW TICKET composition, which she performs with Pre-order your meal and it will live jazz piano virtuoso be ready for you! Presented by the Evelyn Rubenstein Marilyn Lerner. Jewish Community Center of Houston, 713.729.3200 the Houston Cinema Arts Society, and ext. 3232. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Eat at Café at the J during HJFF! The