THE JEWISH FILM FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA INC. PROUDLY PRESENTS 22004004THETHE FESTIVALFESTIVALJEWISHJEWISH OFOF CINEMACINEMA FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY MELBOURNE NOVEMBER 10-28 CLASSIC CINEMA, 9 GORDON STREET, ELSTERNWICK MELBOURNE TELEPHONE BOOKINGS (03) 9877 6811 SYDNEY NOVEMBER 11-28 GU BONDI JUNCTION CINEMAS Levels 6, 7 & 8, 500 OXFORD STREET, WESTFIELD BONDI JUNCTION SYDNEY TELEPHONE BOOKINGS 1300 306 776 LE GRAND RÔLE Opening Night Film A cknowledgements A ustralian Première The 15th Annual Festival of Jewish Cinema is presented by The Jewish Film LOST EMBRACE Foundation of Australia Inc., a non-profit incorporated association (Reg. No. A0025942D), and an endorsed charity. A.B.N. 88 383 595 786. Argentina 2004 Daniel Burman 100 min In Spanish & Yiddish; English subtitles Postal address: P.O. Box 536 Carlton North Vic. 3054. Festivals & Prizes: Official Competition, Berlin (Jury Grand Prix; Silver Bear for Best Actor); Jerusalem; London Members Winner of two major prizes at this year’s Berlin Film Festival, including Best Actor, this new film from Leon Gorr, Peter Ivany, Les Rabinowicz, Michael Roseby & Michael Selwyn Argentinian director Daniel Burman (his Waiting for the Messiah opened our Festival in 2000) is the most eagerly awaited Jewish movie of the year and one of the hottest on the international festival circuit. Set in Honorary Consultants: Herbert, Geer & Rundle present-day, post-devaluation Argentina, Lost Embrace is a wonderful, bittersweet comedy which explores very large themes through the unlikeliest of situations. Ariel (Daniel Hendler), a broodingly handsome, intense Honorary Solicitors: Marshalls & Dent twentysomething, lives in Galeria Once, a run-down shopping centre in the Jewish inner-city area of Buenos Aires, where his mother Sonia runs a lingerie store, and his energetic, roguish brother Joseph, who was once an Honorary Accountants: Roseby, Rosner & Young aspiring rabbi, has an import-export business. The Galeria is an amusingly diverse affair, with Koreans, Italians and other dislocated immigrants, along with families like Ariel’s, whose grandparents came to Argentina from Poland to escape the Holocaust. Ariel wants to claim a Polish passport and identity so he can go to Europe and Honorary Auditors: Sothertons L.L.P. start a new life. What pre-occupies him most, though, is not his grandparents’ harrowing experiences, or his own uncertain future, but why his father went to Israel shortly after Ariel was born, to join its army and fight in the Yom Kippur War. Why, Ariel ponders, did his father never return and why does his mother still stand up Festival Director: Les Rabinowicz for a man who left her in the lurch with two young children? All is resolved in the most perfect of endings, underplayed and tender. Festival Programmer: Diane Perelsztejn Friends of the Festival A ustralian Première Jessica Goldstein, Mansook Irving, Phillip Zajac, Delyce Litchfield, Scott Murray, AMEN Annette Smith & Lina Raso France 2002 Costa-Gavras 132 min In English Festivals & Prizes: Official Competition, Berlin; César Best Screenplay, France We gratefully acknowledge the generous support of the following organizations and individuals: With hard-hitting films like The Music Box, Missing and Z, Greek director Costa-Gavras has never been afraid of inciting controversy Donors during his long and much-lauded international career. But he may Arkardy Shtrambrandt; The Pratt Foundation; Standard Universal Group; have tackled his most incendiary subject yet with Amen, a searing The Ivany Investment Group; Rosie & Solomon Lew historical thriller about Pope Pius XII’s silence during the Holocaust. Based loosely on Rolf Hochhuth’s groundbreaking 1963 play, The Deputy, this meticulously researched film follows two characters as With the assistance of: they attempt to alert the Church and the wider world to the Altshul Printers and AltCreative; extermination of Europe’s Jews in Hitler’s death camps. The first is Mercure Grand Hotel on Swanston, Melbourne; the remarkable figure of Kurt Gerstein, the German SS officer who was pivotal in providing the Zyklon B gas Sofitel Wentworth Sydney used in the gas chambers, a gas he originally thought was being used for decontamination purposes. Appalled by what he witnessed, Gerstein tried to sabotage his own production line and expose what the Germans were doing. Gerstein’s Schindleresque mission parallels that of a fictional second character, an idealistic young Jesuit (played by the director and actor Mathieu Kassovitz – Amélie, Métisse, La Haine), who struggles to make the Pope speak out. Instead, he discovers pro-German and anti-Semitic pressures at the Vatican, along with the infamous Vatican escape route used to ferry fleeing Nazis out of Europe at war’s end. A ustralian Première A ustralian Première ATASH BIT BY BIT Israel 2004 Tawfik Abu Wael 110 min In Arabic; English Sweden 2002 Jonathan Metzger, Pontus Klänge 85 min subtitles In Swedish & Yiddish; English subtitles Festivals & Prizes: Critics’ Week, Cannes; Karlovy Vary; Festival: Jerusalem Jerusalem (Best Film); London A mischievous satire about Jewish familial relations from Winner of the Wolgin Award for Best Israeli Film at this Sweden, Bit By Bit will either infuriate audience members year’s Jerusalem Festival – which it shared with Or (which with its off-beat plot, or send them gasping for breath, as they laugh at this clever spoof of a family’s we are also screening) – Atash (Thirst) is a most unusual religious and cultural traditions. Likened to a Jewish Bend it Like Beckham, the film centres on a Israeli film. Financed and filmed within Israel, but shot lovable 25-year-old slacker-cum-video-game-addict who, to his own surprise and the highly vocal entirely in Arabic, the story unfolds like a Greek tragedy. disgust of his Jewish family and long-suffering non-Jewish girlfriend, finds out that his “life’s dream” Set in an isolated, barren valley, far from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it tells the story of an has come true: he has qualified out of thousands as a contestant for the Nintendo World Cup games Arab-Israeli family who for the past decade has eked out a solitary and precarious living in a in far-off Los Angeles! Though this might not sound like the stuff of family rebellion, or even a grand primitive settlement by making and selling charcoal. Against everyone’s protests, the father misadventure, there is a problem: the games take place on the same day as his family’s Passover Seder. decides to invest the family savings in a pipeline which will provide their home with running And that is only the start of it. Presented with ultimatums by both his family and girlfriend, what’s a water. But the pipe is forbidden by the Israelis, and resented by the local Palestinians. When the young slacker to do? With his irascible grandfather, strung-out girlfriend and ever-demanding father father goes ahead regardless, he ignites a muted rebellion in his long-suffering family which closing in around him, time is running out for this free-wheeling youngster. Laugh-aloud funny, Bit By threatens to bring down their whole world. Working with a striking cast of non-actors blessed Bit is as intoxicating as your first sip of champagne. with remarkable screen presence, director Tawfik Abu Wael has in this impressive feature début Please note: The Festival’s usual age restriction of 18 years and over does not apply to Bit By Bit. Children created an important and strikingly visual film. under 15 years of age may see this film if accompanied by a parent or adult guardian. Those 15 and over are welcome to see this film unaccompanied. A ustralian Première A ustralian Première AVANIM BONJOUR MONSIEUR SHLOMI Israel 2004 Raphaël Nadjari 110 min In Hebrew; Israel 2003 Shemi Zarhin 94 min In Hebrew; English subtitles English subtitles Festivals: Panorama Special, Berlin; Karlovy Vary; This sweetly observed gem has won hearts at film Jerusalem festivals around the world, earning it a major cinema release and glowing reviews in the USA. Deftly An Israeli wife and mother balances an illicit composed of many gentle moments, amusing subplots affair, family pressure and a professional career in and witty dialogue, Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi goes against this powerful new Israeli drama from the French-born, American-based director Raphaël the grain of much recent Israeli filmmaking, skirting Nadjari. Set in the working-class “Hatikva” section of southern Tel Aviv, Avanim (literally politics and, mercifully, other ‘big’ issues to portray a “stones” in Hebrew) tells the story of thirtysomething Michale (splendidly played by Asi Levi) as family which is blessedly normal in its internal chaos. Sixteen-year-old Shlomi (Oshri Cohen) is she navigates these conflicting demands and her own desire for some kind of personal the quietly reliable youngest son in a harried household run by his mother Ruhama (Esti fulfilment. Working as a bookkeeper for her father’s accountancy firm – where she looks after Zakhaim). Overwhelmed as a nurse, recently betrayed as a wife, and a parent to three children, the ledgers of some ultra-orthodox religious organisations – her highly compartmentalised daily including a married daughter who periodically runs home because her frazzled husband can’t tell life has to work like clockwork. But one day en route to a clandestine rendezvous, the hotel their twins apart, Ruhama barely has time to notice her son’s hidden talents. Misjudged and where she is to meet her lover is blown-up by terrorists. Her life takes a dramatic turn as her much put-upon, Shlomi is peacekeeper to the various family combatants, including a lovable relationships with her father and Sephardic husband deteriorate alarmingly. Telling its big story grandfather whose habit of speaking French to Shlomi gives the film its title. A box-office hit in through the smallest of details, director Nadjari has fashioned an unusually complex portrait of Israel, where it ran for an astonishing 40 weeks, Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi is a timely reminder that Israeli society, where even harmless acts of personal freedom assume profound significance and a Jewish family comedy-drama does not have to be loud to make a life-affirming impact.