The National Center for Jewish Film New Releases 8-06.pdf · Call for 35mm, 16mm, Beta, Video, ... unusually beautiful musical score make this one of the most outstanding Jewish pictures

For More Information: www.jewishfilm.org or (781) 736-8600 or (781) 899-7044 VHS & DVD are for institutional use and do not include public performance rights. Call for 35mm, 16mm, Beta, Video, and DVD public performance rentals. Preview tapes: $10 for shipping/handling.

The National Center for Jewish Film Brandeis University, Lown 102, MS 053 Waltham, Massachusetts 02454 (781) 736-8600; [email protected] 8/15/2006 1

The National Center for Jewish Film

NEW RELEASES

2 or 3 Things I Know About Him Festival Germany, 2005, 89 min, color 35mm German & English w/ English subtitles Director/Writer: Malte Ludin Public Exhibition 35mm Rental: Call • Berlin Film Festival (2005); Bergen International Film Festival

(2005); International Film Festival Bratislava (2005); Haifa International Film Festival (2005)

Malte Ludin's documentary about his father, Hanns Ludin, a prominent Nazi who was tried and executed as a war criminal in 1947, focuses on how his family grapples with--or refuses to engage--the history of their family and of Weimar and Nazi Germany more generally. Although the truth about Hanns Ludin’s role in the war is well documented, when Malte Ludin, Hanns Ludin’s youngest child, confronts his family with questions about Hanns and his legacy, Hann’s widow, children, and grandchildren argue with him and with each other about their family’s history, a topic which has remained, to a large degree, undiscussed by the family in the 60 years since the war. Hanns Elard Ludin found fame as a young officer during the Weimar Republic after having conspired on Hitler’s behalf in the German army. When Hitler came to power, Ludin quickly rose to become a Nazi storm trooper Obergruppenführer and, by the time he was 28, he had an army of no less than 300,000 storm troopers under his command. Ludin and his family enjoyed all the privileges of the Third Reich. In 1941, Hitler sent him as emissary to the Nazi’s vassal state, Slovakia. As "Plenipotentiary Minister of the German Reich," his mission was to push Berlin’s interests, which included, in particular,

the implementation of the Final Solution. Providing an intimate look into the world of senior Nazi officials and bureaucrats, the film includes access to Ludin’s private letters, reports, and photographs (which he kept in leather bound scrapbooks), documenting Nazi rallies and events, meetings, deportations and other actions.

The Buchenwald Ball Festival Australia, 2006, 52 min, color Producer/Director/Writer: Andrew Wiseman Co-Producer/Writer: Danny Ben-Moshe Co-Director/Writer: Uri Mizrahi Public Exhibition Beta or DVD Rental: Call

The Buchenwald Ball is a film that celebrates survival. Uplifting, full of swagger and joie de vivre, it tells the story of 45 orphans who escaped the Holocaust and found their way to Australia after their liberation from the Buchenwald concentration camp. These child survivors came to be known as the Buchenwald Boys, a group of friends who drink hard, argue with gusto, sustain one another, and dance to live. The film documents their struggles, their humor, and ultimately the tenacity of their human spirits in the aftermath of unimaginable tragedy. Whether they are debating how to celebrate the 60th ball or the existence for God, the Boys are full of vigor and humor. Four of the Boys—Szaja Chaskiel, Sam Michalowicz, Henry Salter, and Joe Szwarcberg—now in their seventies and eighties, share stories from before and after their liberation, revealing memories of childhood homes, the last moments with murdered parents, surviving



Nazi ghettos, camps and death marches, and their emigration to Australia. The film follows Chaskiel on his first visit to Poland and Germany since his liberation. Accompanied by his son, Mark, Chaskiel visits the camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Buchenwald, where he visits Block 66, the children’s block, where he and most of the Boys were imprisoned. Every year on April 11, the anniversary of their liberation, the Buchenwald Boys hold a ball filled with music, dancing, and an energy that defies their advancing ages. The ball is a defiant celebration of life, friendship, family, and love.

The Cantor's Son Yiddish Feature USA, 1937, 90 minutes, b&w New Restoration Yiddish with new English subtitles Theatrical / Festival Producers: Arthur Block & (Samuel) Max Seigel Screenplay: Louis Frieman Director: Ilya Motyleff (& Sidney Goldin, uncredited) Cast: Moishe Oysher, Florence Weiss, Michael Rosenberg, Isidore Cashier, Judith Abarbanel Restoration: The National Center for Jewish Film Public Exhibition 35mm Rental: Call • Premiere, Jerusalem Film Festival (2006)

This Yiddish feature film musical drama marks the screen debut of singer and cantor Moishe Oysher (Overture to Glory and The Singing Blacksmith, titles restored by The NCJF). Shot in Pennsylvania near the Pocono Mountains, the film features Oysher in the title role of a wayward youth who makes his way from his Polish shtetl to New York's Lower East Side (the film includes rare glimpses of the Lower East Side and of 2nd Avenue Yiddish theater marquees of the period). While washing floors in a nightclub several years later he is “discovered” and becomes a well-known singer. Ultimately, Oysher's

character returns home to the Old Country and reunites with his parents and his childhood sweetheart.

In his book on Yiddish cinema, Bridge of Light, critic J. Hoberman calls The Cantor's Son an "anti-Jazz Singer," further remarking that the film's story parallels Oysher's own struggle to reconcile his cantorial calling with a career in show business. Like his film character, Oysher, born in Bessarabia the son and grandson of cantors, was both a matinee idol and a celebrated cantor. Oysher was married to his The Cantor’s Son co-star Florence Weiss.

After film director Sidney M. Goldin (director of Uncle Moses and East and West, also restored by NCJF) suffered a fatal heart attack during the production of The Cantor’s Son, he was replaced by Stanislavsky-protege Ilya Motlyeff, who is credited as the film’s director. The film's score (including the sentimental song "Mayn Shtetle Belz") was composed by Alexander Olshanetsky, a concert violinist and veteran of the 2nd Avenue Yiddish theater.

"A deft combination of comedy, romance and outstanding music, this new Jewish picture will appeal tremendously to the Jewish fans. A fine cast, well-done story and deft direction, combined with an unusually beautiful musical score make this one of the most outstanding Jewish pictures produced in this country" - Film Daily (Dec. 1937).

From Philadelphia to the Front Festival USA, 2005, 37 min, color DVD Purchase Directors: Judy Gelles & Marianne Bernstein Institutional Use DVD Purchase: $72 Public Exhibition DVD or Beta Rental: Call



New Filmmakers Award, Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival

(2005) Audience Favorite Documentary Short & Best Documentary,

Second Place, Palm Springs IntnFest of Short Films (2005) Best Documentary Short, Second Place, Warsaw Jewish Film

Festival (2005) Washington D.C. Jewish Film Festival (2005); New York Jewish

Film Festival (2006); Delray Beach Film Festival (2006); Rhode Island International Film Festival (2005)

One of the few documentaries to explore the stories of Jewish-American World War II soldiers, this film focuses on six Philadelphia veterans in their 80’s, and their individual experiences during the war and a bittersweet reunion they share in their old age. For Jews, the war to defeat Hitler had deeply personal significance. Combined with photographs from the men’s personal collections, the film includes rare archival footage, stills, and newsreels including Jewish soldiers celebrating Shabbat and Passover during wartime and the first Jewish service at Dachau after it was liberated. Milton Dank, a noted physicist and historian who flew glider planes in WWII, contributed hundreds of photographs he took on the front lines. Photographer Judy Gelles, who was very close to her father-in-law Sidney Gelles until his death in 1986, discovered a box of his World War II artifacts. In this box were Sidney's helmet, spats, tallis, dog tag, War Department manuals, photos, telegrams, and hundreds of letters to his future bride Clara. In these letters were hints of anti-semitism that he experienced during the five years that he served. He never talked about those years in the Army. This lack of information prompted Judy and her partner in the project photographer Marianne Bernstein to investigate the experiences of Jews who served in WW II. The film premiered at the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia as part of A Soldier's Story: Intimate Artifacts of World War II, an exhibition of still photographs and letters.

Great Cantors of the Golden Age / DVD purchase Great Cantors in Cinema (2 DVD set) USA, 2006, 120 min, b&w/color Hebrew, Yiddish & English w/ English subtitles Director: Rich Pontius Producer: Cantor Murray E. Simon DVD Purchase: $49.95 The long-awaited re-release of NCJF’s most popular titles, these two films feature some of the rarest and finest performances of renowned cantors from 1910 to the 1940s. Great Cantors of the Golden Age includes highlights from Yiddish filmmaker Joseph Seiden’s 1931 film The Voice of Israel with performances by Adolph Katchko, Josef “Yossele” Rosenblatt, David Roitman, Joseph Shlisky, and Mordechai Hershman. Great Cantors in Cinema’s film excerpts include: Yossele Rosenblatt in Dream of My People (1933), Moshe

Koussevitsky in We Who Remain (1946), Mordechai Hershman in The Voice of Israel (1931), Moishe Oysher in Overture to Glory (1940) and Louis "Leibele" Waldman in A Cantor on Trial (1931). These two new DVD productions include extras, including 7 additional cantorial pieces: "Oshamnu Mikol Om" by David Roitman; "Kol Nidre" by Adolph Katchko; "Anenu" and "Shabbat Kiddush" (conclusion) by Moishe Oysher; "ViY'rushalayim Ircho" by Moshe Koussevitsky; "Yarhzeit" and "Yiddishe Mamma" by Yossele Rosenblatt.

The Holocaust Tourist: Festival Whatever Happened To Never Again? DVD Purchase UK, 2005, 10 min, color Director: Jes Benstock Institutional Use DVD Purchase: $36 Public Exhibition DVD or Beta Rental: Call Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival (2005); UK Jewish Film Festival

(2005); San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (2006); Glasgow Jewish Film Festival (2006); NCJF’s Jewishfilm.2006

A wry, animated documentary about how Holocaust tourism distorts history. A whistle-stop tour from Auschwitz hot-dogs to Krakow's kitsch Judaica. How is dark tourism changing history? “An experimental and powerful documentary look at the tourism industry that’s grown up in Poland in the wake of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List - Philip Ilson, Co-Director Halloween Short Film Festival, London



Samuel Bak: Painter of Questions Festival Canada, 2003, 48 min, color DVD purchase Director: Christa Singer Producer: Marike Emery Institutional Use DVD Purchase: $72 Public Exhibition Beta or DVD Rental: Call

In 2001, on the occasion of a retrospective exhibit of his work, painter Samuel Bak returned to his hometown of Vilna (now Vilnius, Lithuania). There, he walked the streets of the Vilna ghetto where he was interned with his parents during the Holocaust and visited the nearby forest where his father and grandparents were murdered. Amongst the tall trees of the Ponari forest, Samuel Bak’s life came full circle. This documentary explores Bak’s work and life through the lens of his childhood experiences. Born in 1933 in Vilna, Poland, young Samuel was declared a child prodigy. The happiness of his childhood came to an end, however, the day his family was marched into the Jewish Ghetto, changing his life and his artistic vision forever. Saved from the death camps by his father, the miracle of his survival became and still is a recurring theme in his art. Insightful Interviews with the artist, Holocaust scholar Lawrence Langer, and Pucker Gallery director Bernard Pucker explore the unique and powerful visual vocabulary and iconography of Bak’s work, which is held in museums, galleries, and collections worldwide. “Ignited by haunting images from his memories of the horror of the Holocaust, Bak’s work reflects not just the fragility of human existence but also the triumph of the human spirit in the face of atrocity. The imagery in his paintings—from discarded and distorted teddy bears to his immensely moving self-portrait, in which a wide-eyed boy emerges from a burlap sack—allows viewers to travel in both time and state of mind to places far beyond the Holocaust.” - Filmmaker Christa Singer

Yippee!: A Journey to Jewish Joy Festival USA, 2006, 74 min, color DVD purchase Producer/Director: Paul Mazursky

Directed by award-winning American filmmaker, actor, and scriptwriter Paul Mazursky (Next Stop Greenwich Village, An Unmarried Woman, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, Enemies: A Love Story), Yippee! chronicles the director’s whirlwind journey to Uman, a small Ukrainian town that is the site of a unique, annual gathering of Jewish men making pilgrimages to the burial place of Rabbi Nachman (1772-1810). When Mazursky was told (by his optometrist) that 25,000—mostly Hassidic—Jews from around the world were expected to visit Uman for three days of praying, singing, and dancing, the director felt compelled to make the journey himself. Arriving in the Ukraine with a small film crew, Mazursky experiences an amazing series of events. He meets and interviews a wide variety of Jewish men from many countries, sharing meals, laughs, and this unique experience. The director visits the gravesite of Hassidic movement founder the Baal Shem Tov (Nachman's great-grandfather) and talks with Uman’s non-Jews about their reactions to the annual massive influx of Hassidim. The adventure culminates on the evening of Rosh Hashanah in a mass expression of spiritual ecstasy. Yippee! is an infectious road movie filled with electricity and awe and Mazursky is a splendid guide, funny, curious, and generous.

“Brilliant documentary, beautifully told—and funny.” - Larry King “A deeply moving film—powerful—and wonderfully funny. Yippee!” - Kirk Douglas

“Paul Mazursky delivers an enchanting world, funny, fascinating and surprisingly touching.” - Mel Brooks

Documents

The National Center for Jewish Film New Releases 8-06.pdf · Call for 35mm, 16mm, Beta, Video, ... unusually beautiful musical score make this one of the most outstanding Jewish pictures