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The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present the eleventh annual New York Jewish Film Festival from January 13 to 24, 2002. This collaboration between the Museum and the Film Society will take place at The Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, New York City. Featuring two world, seven United States, and eleven New York premieres, the international festival will present thirty productions illuminating the rich diversity of the Jewish experience from Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This year's films, set everywhere from Turkey and Tel Aviv to Costa Rica and New York, reflect the magnificent diversity of the Jewish experience. The themes and genres of these works are wide-ranging, from The Walnut Tree, a dreamlike experimental short, and the Parisian romantic comedy Once We Grow Up to important documentaries like Brownsville Black and White. The vibrant Argentinean Jewish cinema is represented by four compelling works, including an Argentinean/American co-production To Live with Terror, a fascinating investigation of the bombings of the Israeli embassy and the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires in the 1990s.

Several directors will be in New York during the festival to introduce their films, including Mirra Bank, Robert Cohen, Jacky Comforty, Karl Francis, Pearl Gluck, Joel Katz, Ronit Kertsner, Elida Schogt, Ton Vriens and Jorge Weller.

Highlights of the festival include the world premiere of American director Mirra Bank's documentary, Last Dance (2002, video). This film reveals the creative process behind the dancework, "A Selection," a collaboration between legendary author-illustrator Maurice Sendak and the innovative and audacious dance company Pilobolus, partly inspired by the Czech composer Hans Krasa's opera Brundibar, which was performed by children in the Terezín concentration camp. British director Karl Francis' One of the Hollywood Ten (2000) will receive its New York premiere. The film stars Jeff Goldblum, Greta Scacchi and Angela Molina, and presents the compelling story of Herbert Biberman, a film director and victim of McCarthyism blacklisted in the 1950s for refusing to disavow his Communist beliefs. Also receiving its world premiere is American filmmaker Joel Katz's Strange Fruit (2001, video). This work delves into the history and legacy of the song Strange Fruit -- written by Bronx Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol in the 1930s and best known through a Billie Holiday rendition – using it to explore the intricacies of Black/Jewish relations.

The festival will offer five rarely seen archival films: Hungarian director Jeno Illes' Szulamit (silent, 1916), receiving its United States premiere and adapted from the popular Biblical operetta by Yiddish theater pioneer Abraham Goldfaden; Polish director Henryk Szaro's The Vow (Tkies Kaf) (1937), one of the last Yiddish films made in Poland before the Holocaust, in a newly restored print receiving its New York premiere featuring Zygmunt Turkow as the prophet Elijah and future Yiddish theater star Dina Halpern; Polish directors Yitzhak and Shaul Goskind's Jewish Life in Vilna (1939), a lively short documentary recording Jewish daily life in pre-war Vilna; and two rediscovered rare film fragments of Yiddish theater adaptations produced in Riga: Russian director Yevgeny Slavinsky's The Wedding Day (silent, 1912), and Meir Ezofowicz (silent, 1911).

Six documentaries will receive their United States premieres: Israeli director Asaffa Peled's Pacha Mama (2001), which tells the story of Moshe Kastiel who left Israel to settle in Goa, India, where he became a renowned trance DJ, embarked on a spiritual journey and established a commune in Costa Rica; Israeli director Nisan Katz's Thank God for India (2000, video), which follows the adventures of Amos Mosenzon, who left his home in Israel at age 72 to tour India alongside various fellow travelers fresh from military duty; Israeli filmmaker Herz Frank's short, Madonna with Child, XX Century, (2001, video), an elegiac and meditative film on the monument that stands in the forests outside the Latvian capital of Riga, where thousands of Jews were executed between 1941 and 1944; French/Israeli director Michale Boganim's Dust (2001), a lyrical portrait of Odessa, once a flourishing center of Yiddish culture, and of three lifelong friends from among the city's last remaining Jews; Dutch filmmaker Ton Vriens' To Live with Terror (2001, video), investigating the bombings of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 and the Jewish Community Center there two years later; and Israeli director Jorge Weller's My Own Telenovela (2001, video), recording the director's journey back to his native Argentina, which he left 22 years earlier to immigrate to Israel.

In addition to One of the Hollywood Ten, three other dramatic films will receive their New York premieres. French director Renaud Cohen's Once We Grow Up (2000) is a charming romantic comedy about a young man trying to understand his place as a 30-year-old with Algerian Jewish roots in modern, multicultural Paris. Swiss director Xavier Koller's Gripsholm (2000) features an outstanding cast in a beautiful setting, and tells of a Berlin-based political journalist and his girlfriend who help turn Gripsholm Castle in Sweden into a temporary refuge for themselves and a provocative cabaret singer as events in Germany worsen in the early 1930s. In Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski's Keep Away from the Window (2000), a Jewish girl hiding in a young couple's house in a town in Nazi-occupied Poland becomes pregnant with the husband's child, leading the couple to attempt to pass the baby off as their own.

Six documentaries will receive their New York premieres. Canadian filmmaker Robert Cohen's The Travellers: This Land is Your Land (2001, video) presents the story of The Travellers, "World-famous in Canada" and perhaps best known for their Canadian adaptation of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land." Israeli director Arnon Goldfinger's The Komediant (1999) is a portrait of the musical Burstyn family, full of funny anecdotes, wonderful clips of performances, home movies, and appearances by the likes of Fyvush Finkel and a must-see for any fan of the Yiddish stage. Swedish director Brita Landoff's My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1999), is a charming Yiddish rendition of the Cole Porter classic, beautifully and soulfully sung by Swedish actress Basia Frydman as she serenades her father in his barbershop. Polish filmmaker Dzamila Ankiewicz's Zygielbojm's Death (2001, video) tells of the life and death of S. A. Zygielbojm, an important member of Poland's Jewish community, smuggled out of the country in 1942 and sent abroad as the Jewish representative of the Polish government-in-exile to spread word of the Nazi atrocities in Poland, who ultimately committed suicide after the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Israeli director Ronit Kertsner's The Secret (2001, video) explores the identity crises unfolding in Poland on a national scale of citizens who have grown up Catholic but discover later in life that they are actually Jewish. American filmmakers Jacky and Lisa Comforty's The Optimists (2000) tells the virtually unknown story of how 50,000 Jews living in Bulgaria survived the Holocaust through the efforts of Christian, Muslim and Jewish individuals and professional organizations, offering an inspiring account of what courage can accomplish in the face of unspeakable evil. American director Pearl Gluck's Divan (2001, video), receiving two preview screenings, traces a journey from a Brooklyn Hasidic community to its origins in Hungary and back in an effort to retrieve a turn-of-the-century family heirloom from the filmmaker's great-grandfather's house in Rohod, Hungary.

Four additional dramas will be screened. American director Frank Pierson's Emmy award-winning Conspiracy (2001) is a gripping dramatization of the Wannsee Conference, where a group of top Nazi and SS officials secretly met outside Berlin to discuss what would come to be called the "final solution of the Jewish problem," and stars Stanley Tucci as Adolf Eichmann and Kenneth Branagh as SS General Reinhard Heydrich. Argentinean filmmaker Daniel Burman'S Waiting for the Messiah (1999) is both a chronicle of a restless young man's struggle to break with tradition and make his own way in the world and an illuminating portrait of El Once, Buenos Aires' famed Jewish neighborhood. Argentinean director Gabriel Lichtmann's short film, The Seventh Day (2000), follows the hectic events of an Argentinean boy's Bar Mitzvah thrown into chaos when a blackout strikes, against the backdrop of changes in Argentinean Jewish life since the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires. French director Ilana Navaro's They Came to Pick Me Up (2001, video) tells the touching story of a woman in her sixties, preparing to leave Istanbul to join her family in Tel Aviv, who spends one final bittersweet summer in Turkey with her visiting 8-year-old granddaughter.

Other notable documentaries in the festival include: Canadian director Elida Schogt's short film, The Walnut Tree (2000), a follow-up to her award-winning Zyklon Portrait (shown in last year's New York Jewish Film Festival), which examines the final, remembered fragments of her family in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam; and American director Richard Broadman's Brownsville Black and White (2000), which follows 60 years of Black/Jewish relations in Brownsville, Brooklyn -- known first as a racially integrated community unified by shared liberal politics, and then as the setting of a watershed schism between blacks and Jews in the late 1960s.

The eleventh annual New York Jewish Film Festival has been organized by a committee consisting of Rachel Chanoff, Chair, Film Festival Selection Committee; J. Hoberman, Senior Film Critic, The Village Voice; Richard Peña, Program Director, The Film Society of Lincoln Center; Mohini Sara Shapero, Film Festival Coordinator; and Aviva Weintraub, Director of Media and Public Programs, The Jewish Museum.

TICKET INFORMATION: The Walter Reade Theater is located at 165 West 65th Street, Plaza Level. Tickets for each screening are $9 for the general public; $5 for Film Society and Jewish Museum members and donors; and $4.50 for senior citizens during weekday matinees. Tickets are available online at www.filmlinc.com; by phone at 212.496.3809; or at the box office, from 30 minutes before the first screening of the day until 15 minutes after the last show begins. There is a $1 surcharge per ticket for all tickets bought online or by phone. To request a brochure and ticket order form, the public may call 212.423.3338.

For general information, the public may call The Jewish Museum at 212.423.3338 or The Walter Reade Theater box office at 212.875.5600. A complete schedule will be available on the Internet at www.thejewishmuseum.org, The Jewish Museum's Web site, and at www.filmlinc.com, The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Web site.

This international festival is made possible by generous support from The Martin and Doris Payson Charitable Foundation, The Liman Foundation, The Jack and Pearl Resnick Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Mimi and Barry Alperin and other funders.

PRESS SCREENINGS AT THE WALTER READE THEATER:
(165 West 65th Street, Plaza Level)
RSVP for press screenings: (212) 875 5625

Wednesday, January 2 at 10:30 am
KEEP AWAY FROM THE WINDOW (117 min.)

Friday, January 4 at 10:30 am
ONE OF THE HOLLYWOOD TEN (102 min)

Monday, January 7 at 10:30 am
LAST DANCE (84 min.)

Tuesday, January 8 at 10:30 am
BROWNSVILLE BLACK AND WHITE (83 min.) and
STRANGE FRUIT (56 min.)

Eleventh Annual New York Jewish Film Festival Schedule
Presented by The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center
t the Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street, Plaza Level
Information: 212.423.3338 Box Office: 212.875.5600

Sunday, January 13

12:00 pm Szulamit US Premiere

Director: Jeno Illes (Hungary, 1916, 60 min., 35mm, silent with simultaneous

translation of Hungarian inter-titles and live piano accompaniment by Curtis Salke)

preceded by

The Wedding Day

Director: Yevgeny Slavinsky (Russia, 1912, 10 min., video, silent with live piano

accompaniment by Curtis Salke) and

Meir Ezofowicz NY Premiere

(Russia, 1911, 7 min., 35mm, silent)

2:00 pm One of the Hollywood Ten NY Premiere

Director: Karl Francis (England/Spain, 2000, 102 min., 35mm)

4:15 pm The Vow (Tkies Kaf) NY Premiere of restored print

Director: Henryk Szaro (Poland, 1937, 82 min., 35mm, restored Yiddish film with

English subtitles) preceded by

Jewish Life in Vilna

Directors: Yitzhak and Shaul Goskind (Poland, 1939, 10 min., 16 mm, Yiddish with English subtitles)

6:15 pm Once We Grow Up NY Premiere

Director: Renaud Cohen (France, 2000, 92 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

preceded by

The Walnut Tree

Director: Elida Schogt (Canada, 2000, 11 min., 16mm)

8:30 pm One of the Hollywood Ten

Monday, January 14

1:00 pm Once We Grow Up preceded by

The Walnut Tree

3:15 pm The Vow (Tkies Kaf) preceded by

Jewish Life in Vilna

6:15 pm One of the Hollywood Ten

8:30 pm Conspiracy

Director: Frank Pierson (USA, 2001, 96 min.)

Tuesday, January 15

1:00 pm The Travellers: This Land is Your Land NY Premiere

Director: Robert Cohen (Canada, 2001, 72 min., video) preceded by

My Heart Belongs to Daddy NY Premiere

Director: Brita Landoff (Sweden, 1999, 4 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

3:15 pm Pacha Mama US Premiere

Director: Asaffa Peled (Israel, 2001, 61 min., video, English subtitles) preceded by

Thank God for India US Premiere

Director: Nisan Katz (Israel, 2000, 58 min., video, English subtitles)

6:15 pm Szulamit preceded by

The Wedding Day and

Meir Ezofowicz

8:15 pm Zygielbojm's Death NY Premiere

Director: Dzamila Ankiewicz (Poland, 2001, 52 min., video, English subtitles)

preceded by

The Secret NY Premiere

Director: Ronit Kertsner (Israel, 2001, 55 min., video, English subtitles)

Wednesday, January 16

1:00 pm Conspiracy

3:15 pm The Travellers: This Land is Your Land preceded by

My Heart Belongs to Daddy

6:15 pm Pacha Mama preceded by

Thank God for India

8:45 pm The Travellers: This Land is Your Land preceded by

My Heart Belongs to Daddy

Thursday, January 17

1:00 pm Gripsholm NY Premiere

Director: Xavier Koller (Germany/Switzerland, 2000, 102 min., 35mm,

English subtitles)

3:15 pm Keep Away from the Window NY Premiere

Director: Jan Jakub Kolski (Poland, 2000, 117 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

6:15 pm Zygielbojm's Death preceded by

The Secret

8:30 pm Waiting for the Messiah

Director: Daniel Burman (Argentina, 1999, 90 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

preceded by

The Seventh Day

Director: Gabriel Lichtmann (Argentina, 2000, 14 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

Saturday, January 19

7:00 pm Keep Away from the Window

9:30 pm Waiting for the Messiah preceded by

The Seventh Day

Sunday, January 20

2:00 pm Last Dance World Premiere

Director: Mirra Bank (USA, 2001, 84 min., video) preceded by

Madonna with Child, XX Century US Premiere

Director: Herz Frank (Israel, 2001, 10 min., video, English subtitles)

4:15 pm Brownsville Black and White

Director: Richard Broadman (USA, 2000, 83 min., 16mm)

6:15 pm Keep Away from the Window

8:30 pm Gripsholm

Monday, January 21

1:00 pm Strange Fruit World Premiere

Director: Joel Katz (USA, 2001, 56 min., video) preceded by

Dust US Premiere

Director: Michale Boganim (France, 2001, 29 min., 35mm, English subtitles)

3:15 pm Last Dance preceded by

Madonna with Child, XX Century

6:15 pm Strange Fruit preceded by

Dust

8:30 pm Brownsville Black and White

Tuesday, January 22

1:00 pm Brownsville Black and White

3:15 pm Divan Preview Screening

Director: Pearl Gluck (USA, 2001, 90 min., video)

6:15 pm The Optimists NY Premiere

Directors: Jacky & Lisa Comforty (USA, 2000, 83 min., 16mm, English subtitles)

preceded by

They Came to Pick Me Up

Director: Ilana Navaro (France, 2001, 20 min., video, English subtitles)

8:30 pm Divan

Wednesday, January 23

1:00 pm The Optimists preceded by

They Came to Pick Me Up

3:15 pm To Live with Terror US Premiere

Director: Ton Vriens (Argentina/USA, 2001, 60 min., video, English subtitles)

preceded by

My Own Telenovela US Premiere

Director: Jorge Weller (Israel, 2001, 60 min., video, English subtitles)

6:00 pm Last Dance preceded by

Madonna with Child, XX Century

8:15 pm To Live with Terror preceded by

My Own Telenovela

Thursday, January 24

1:00 pm To Live with Terror preceded by

My Own Telenovela

3:30 pm The Komediant NY Premiere

Director: Arnon Goldfinger (Israel, 1999, 81 min., 35 mm, English subtitles)

6:15 pm Strange Fruit preceded by

Dust

8:30 pm The Komediant

Editors please note: There will be repeat screenings of three of the festival films at MAKOR, 35 West 67th Street, New York City: Waiting for the Messiah on Tuesday, January 22 at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm; and Thank God for India and Pacha Mama on Wednesday, January 23 and Thursday, January 24 at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm. For tickets to these screenings at MAKOR, those interested should call 212.601.1000.