Thursday, March 11, 7:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
A JOURNEY OF SPIRIT
Director: Ann Coppel
USA, 2003, Beta SP, color, 76 min., documentary, English
Filmmaker in attendance
 A Journey of Spirit tells the story of the remarkable singer, songwriter and guitarist Debbie Friedman. One of the preeminent women in contemporary Jewish culture, Debbie has integrated contemporary melody with Jewish liturgy to transform Jewish sacred music, making the text accessible to a large and diverse audience. Debbie’s tremendous power as an artist and leader to promote spirituality, healing and community are explored. Viewers are treated to a lively and heartfelt exchange as A Journey of Spirit places the debate about contemporary versus traditional prayer music squarely on the table.
The film is followed by dedication of the Susan Himmelman Shapiro Twin Cities Jewish Film Festival and gala reception
Saturday, March 13, 8:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
The Last Hiding Place (Das Letzte Versteck)
Director: Pierre Koralnik
Poland/Germany/Switzerland, 2003, Beta SP, color, 89 min., feature,
Polish and German with English subtitles
 It’s autumn in Poland, 1942. Two sisters, eighteen and twenty, flee from the ghetto. Their father believes their only chance of escaping is to volunteer as forced laborers in the lion’s den - in Germany. Initially they call themselves Katarzyna and Elzbieta, but for cover they repeatedly assume other names and identities. The sisters’ odyssey is a “journey” through all levels of human feeling, anxiety and hope. Their desperate goal is to live. How do you learn to lie when faced with imminent exposure? How does your self - perception change? How do you assume a new identity and hide your true self? Two sides of a very intense coin make up this nail biting fight for survival.
Sunday, March 14, 10:00 a.m. at the Sabes JCC
Yiddish Vinkl Program
MAME LOSHN, KINDER LOSHN (Mother Tongue, Children’s Tongue)
Director: Tommy Schwarcz and Avi Lehrer
Israel, 2002, Beta SP, color, 52 min., documentary, Yiddish and Hebrew with English subtitles
 “At the end of the 19th century, Yiddish was spoken by more than 12 million people. Only 1 million speak it today. This is the story of Yiddish in Israel.” So begins this richly detailed history of Yiddish in Israel. The collaboration between the filmmakers was not an obvious one. The director, Lehrer, 56, is a retired lawyer who boasts no great love of Yiddish and says he was hoping, quite simply, to make a good movie. The producer, Perloff, 62, is a businessman and a self-proclaimed Yiddish fanatic. But the history and sentimentality that attracted Perloff to Yiddish repelled the early Zionist establishment in Israel, which is the focus of much of the film. The film also explores the resurgence of Yiddish among the non-religious in Israel.
Sunday, March 14, 2:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
CHILDREN’S FILM FAIR
Total running time: 72 minutes
 A series of animated and dramatic shorts will enlighten and entertain both children and adults. Films include Tunanooda, Something For Nothing, god@heaven, Village of Idiots, and Angel’s Foot Cake.
Monday, March 15, 7:00 p.m. at the JCC of the Greater St. Paul Area
THE SHORT OF IT: A Compilation of Short Films
Co-presented by the Sabes JCC and the Jewish Community Center of the Greater St. Paul Area
Total running time: 113 minutes
 A program of short films that provide food for thought using humor, sweetness, the imagination, and real life situations. Films include THE COLLECTOR OF BEDFORD STREET, A MAISSE (A Tale), ADVICE AND DISSENT, god@heaven, and FESTIVAL UNDER WAR.
Tuesday, March 16, 7:00 p.m. at Willow Creek Theater
ISRAELI MINI-FEST
Co-presented by the Sabes JCC and the Israel Program Center, featuring
BONJOUR MONSIEUR SHLOMI
Director: Shemi Zarhin
Israel, 2003, 35 mm, color, 94 min., feature, Hebrew with English subtitles.
 Sixteen-year-old Shlomi appears to be a typical teenage boy, one who is also blessed with extraordinary cooking talents. When one of his teachers detects an extraordinary gift Shlomi never knew he had, Shlomi, aided by the power of first love, breaks out of his timid shell and discovers his own independence and potential.
Wednesday, March 17, 7:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
SHALOM IRELAND
Director: Valerie Lapin Ganley
USA, 2003, Beta SP, color, 57 min., documentary, English
 Did you know Israeli president Chaim Herzog was born in Ireland? The little known history of Irish Jewry began in the Middle Ages as Ireland became a destination for Jews in flight from pogroms. Irish Jews ran guns for the IRA but also played prominent roles in the politics of Ireland, with Robert Briscoe’s election as Lord Mayor of Dublin. The renowned Talmudic scholar Rabbi Isaac Herzog was the first chief rabbi of Ireland, and later became the first chief rabbi of the state of Israel.
and
SHALOM Y’ALL
Director: Brian Bain
USA, 2002, Beta SP, color, 57 min., documentary, English
 Traveling the same roads his 100 year old grandfather drove as a hat salesman, director Bain discovers a vibrant Southern Jewish culture that blends the Old World with the New South; a place where Jews fought for the confederacy in the Civil War, and marched for civil rights in the 1960s. Along the way he meets an eclectic mix of southern Jews - cowboys, police chief, boxer, congressman, kosher butcher hoop-skirted tour guide, Mardi Gras crew and more. (WJFF)
Thursday, March 18, 7 p.m. at Willow Creek Theaters
NICHOLAS WINTON: THE POWER OF GOOD
Director: Matej Minac
Czech Republic/Slovakia, 2002, 35mm, B&W and color, 64 min., documentary,
English and Czech with English subtitles
 Writer and director of one of last year’s film festival favorites, All My Loved Ones, Minac has once again crafted an inspiring film that duly honors a hero of the 20th century. Through archival footage, photographs, testimony and interviews, this true story tells of Nicholas Winton’s courageous actions of saving the lives of 669 Jewish children during World War II. This compelling film demonstrates how one man truly can make a difference. Winner: Best documentary, International Emmy Television Awards, New York, 2003
Saturday, March 20, 8:00 p.m. at Willow Creek Theaters
ISRAELI MINI-FEST
Co-presented by the Sabes JCC and Israel Program Center, featuring
KEEP ON DANCING
Director: Solo Avital
Israel, 2002, Beta SP, color, 24 min., documentary, Hebrew with English subtitles
 The struggle of Israeli youth to do the things in life that are most taken for granted - breathing, laughing and of course dancing is captured in “Keep On Dancing.” It documents the mood on the “Israeli street” four days before Israel’s 54th Independence Day. At the time, the Israeli Army was engaged in a major military operation throughout the West Bank in response to a deadly wave of terror attacks. The story is told from the perspective of young Israelis who seek to live normal lives in a country that has eluded anything resembling “normal” throughout much of its five decades of existence.
and
MY TERRORIST
Director: Yulie Cohen Gerstel
Israel, 2002, Beta SP, color, 58 min., documentary, Hebrew with English subtitles
 Fahad Mihyi, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, shot and wounded Yulie Cohen in a terrorist attack. Twenty-two years after his imprisonment, Yulie began thinking about Fahad, referring to him as “my” terrorist. The film is her journey of contacting him in prison and ultimately helping him get released. The film asks hard questions about the meaning of forgiveness and hate and the chance of reconciliation.
Sunday, March 21, 1:30 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
ISRAELI MINI-FEST
Co-presented by the Sabes JCC and Israel Program Center, featuring
MIKE BRANT, LAISSE MOI T’AIMER
Director: Erez Laufer
Israel, 2002, Beta SP, color, 101 min., documentary, Hebrew/French with English subtitles
 Born in a displaced person’s camp in Cyprus, Moshe Brand grew up in working class Haifa. An entertainer from childhood, he was a regular performer at Bar Mitzvahs, weddings and later, in popular nightclubs at home and abroad. Sylvie and Carlos Vartan caught his act in Teheran and invited him to Paris. Without knowing a word of French, and seemingly overnight, his career took off. His many albums sold in the millions, to fans across Europe and around the world. Interviews with family, friends and colleagues, home movies, rare radio recordings and television appearances tell the rags to riches story of a reluctant superstar.
and
Sunday, March 21, 4:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
AVIV
Director: Tomer Heymann
Israel, 2003, Beta SP, color, 80 min., documentary, Hebrew with English subtitles
 Aviv Geffen, the grandson of legendary Moshe Dyan, and son of legendary Israeli singer Jonathan Geffen is rapidly becoming a mythic figure himself. Aviv was the last person to embrace Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin before his tragic assassination. The charismatic, bisexual singer-songwriter has rapidly become the Kurt Cobain or Bob Dylan of his country, a voice that represents peace and integrity for a troubled young generation. Concert footage is included.
Also:
Sunday, March 21, 7:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
DIVAN
Director: Pearl Gluck
USA/Hungary, 2002, video, color, 77 min., documentary,
English, Hungarian & Yiddish w/ English subtitles
Filmmaker in attendance
 Divan is about one woman’s stubborn fixation on a couch. To documentary filmmaker Pearl Gluck, it is no ordinary couch, but an ancestral couch belonging to her great-grandfather upon which four esteemed Rabbis had slept. In an attempt to heal the breach between herself and her ultra-Orthodox father, Pearl journeys to Hungary to reclaim this prized family possession. What begins as a scavenger hunt for a family heirloom becomes a woman’s quest for individual and cultural identity, a reconciling of her Hassidic upbringing with her secular adult life. Through this wacky but wonderfully personal journey, Pearl is finally able to connect with her roots and her father on her own terms.
Tuesday, March 23, 7:00 p.m. at the Sabes JCC
THUNDER IN GUYANA
Director: Suzanne Wasserman
USA, 2003, Beta SP, color and B&W, 51 min., documentary, English
 Janet Rosenberg Jagan, strong, determined, and passionate was the first American-born woman elected to lead a country. In the 1940s, Janet fell in love with Chedi Jagan, a Guyanese student of Indian descent who shared her left-wing politics and zest for life. After marriage in 1943 they moved from Chicago to Guyana where both Chedi and Janet were an integral part of Guyana’s struggle for independence from the British.
and
RUTHIE & CONNIE: EVERY ROOM IN THE HOUSE
Director: Deborah Dickson
USA, 2002, Beta SP, color, 56 min., documentary, English
 Winner of 14 awards from film festivals around the world, this documentary explores the relationship of two remarkable Jewish women. Ruth and Connie started out as friends, part of their tight-knit Jewish community. Both had husbands, children, community involvement, successful careers. But something was missing. Directed by three-time Oscar-nominated Deborah Dickson, this film is an excellent exploration of the obstacles and homophobia some lesbians face in their coming-out process. This couple’s story stands as a testament to how inner strength and conviction can carry you through even the most difficult times. Both Ruthie and Connie will be in attendance.
Thursday, March 25, 7:00 p.m. at Willow Creek Theaters
ROSENSTRASSE
Director: Margarethe von Trotta
Germany, 2003, 35mm, color, 135 min., feature, German and English w/English subtitles
 Margarethe von Trotta found the inspiration for this deeply affecting film in a little known event in German history. Jewish husbands of Aryan wives were protected from deportation. However, during the “final roundup” of mid-winter 1943, many of these protected Jews were suddenly taken to a detention center on the Rosenstrasse, a street in Berlin. Over the course of a two-week protest, the women successfully change the fate of their husbands. Von Trotta uses these events to tell a powerful story that spans sixty years of history and touches on three generations. We start in present-day New York, where the middle-aged Ruth is sitting shiva for her recently departed husband. The arrival of a distant cousin provokes Ruth’s daughter Hannah, to try to uncover her mother’s past, long kept as a dark secret from her. She travels to Berlin and what she discovers there reveals the amazing truth about the years Ruth spent as a child in war-torn Germany. In telling this compelling tale with compassion and sympathy, von Trotta has produced a film of grand stature. Katia Rieman was awarded Best Actress, Venice Biennial 2003.
Saturday, March 27, 7:00 p.m. at the Oak Street Cinema
MY ARCHITECT
Director: Nathanial Kahn
USA, 2003, 35mm, color, 116 min., documentary, English
Director in attendance
Closing Night Reception
2004 Academy Award nomination - Best Documentary category
 The film reveals a riveting narrative about one man’s search to know the hidden heart of his father. Louis I. Kahn, one of the great architects of the 20th century, left a legacy of unique buildings: the art gallery at Yale University, the Salk Institute, the Exeter Library and the capital of Bangladesh. He also left behind an illegitimate son, Nathaniel, and a complex personal life of secrets and broken promises. From the men’s room in Penn Station where Kahn died bankrupt and alone, to the inner sanctums of Jerusalem politics, and to interviews with celebrated architects Frank Gehry, I.M. Pei and Philip Johnson, this personal journey to discover a father becomes a universal investigation of identity and a celebration of art.
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