The 23rd edition of the New York Jewish Film Festival presented a vastly enlarged program held from January 8-23, 2014 at Lincoln Center Film Society venues. As in past years most performances were sold out with a faithful audience attending.  This year 49 features were presented with many world, US or New York premieres and several archival films.  The expansion was made possible by a significant increase of the festival budget by the co-sponsoring New York Jewish Museum.

Among the new elements were special presentations with a master class featuring Amos Gitai, a symposium on culture-specific and identity-driven festivals, and special screening of productions by Yael Baratana, Wim Wenders, Otto Preminger, and Saul Bass.

Expanding a festival aimed at specific sub-cultures or defined ethnic groups while keeping the ‘captive’ core audience is  demanding. It requires a balance between material offered in past editions of the festival, productions with a commercial main stream appeal and experimental innovative films to attract new and younger groups. But it is easier for Jewish film festivals. The festivals’ identification with ‘Jewish film making’ permits broad programming including films on important Jewish issues by directors who are not Jewish. Further, Jewish film festivals benefit from the rise of frequently quality driven independent Israeli film making. What also impacts the programming is a declining interest in issues of the holocaust and a lessening of the historical experience on Jewish identity for the younger Jewish generation. Thus fewer productions dealing with the holocaust have to be included.  Lastly the brand of ‘Jewish Film Festival’ has retained its great appeal. There is growing number of such festivals in the United States reaching in 2012 already 116 with most festivals reporting an increase of their audience.

FRIENDS FROM FRANCE by Anne Weil and Philippe Kotlarski opened the festival. It presented a young French couple, actually cousins, travelling to the Soviet Union. Under the cover of tourism they renew and maintain contact with the Jewish underground in Odessa, with “refuseniks” individuals who are persecuted by the authorities because they try to leave the Soviet Union.  Ten years later they meet in Israel at a celebration with some who were able to leave the Soviet Union, though one of the principals, Victor appears to be far from enthusiastic about his new life in Israel.  IDA, the powerful closing film by Pawel Pawlikowski is about a girl, Anna, who enters as an orphan a convent and prepares to become a nun. Leaving briefly before taking her vows to stay with her aunt Wanda she discovers that her real name is Ida and that she is Jewish. She is confronted with her family’s past and the murder of her parents. IDA is an outstanding feature in the best reflexive cinema tradition with the director stripping the story to the essentials. He is shooting the film in black and white using the traditional almost square academy frame format,  without close ups, tracking shots or rapid edits. The viewer is immersed in the world presented and contemplates the somber story filling in the missing gaps.   Pawlikowski aims for meditation about the story rather than emotional identification as frequently prompted by other features covering the same grounds. He does not have predefined answers for the audience. ANA ARABIA is directed by Amos Gitai, one of the most innovative Israeli directors.  The film presents in one continuous sequence shot lasting 81 minutes, a family where a holocaust survivor had married an Arab construction worker and converted to Islam. In a small enclosed space in Jaffa, the story is tracked by an Israeli journalist meandering through the court yard prompting non-directive talks with the father, his grown up children and neighbors.  Fragmented recollection and selective memories form the tale which has neither heroes nor villains. As in IDA, the director does not convey a clear message to the audience and leaves it to the spectator to create meaning.  For Gitai the relationships, conflicts and characters emerging from the film are too complex to place them into strait jackets of conventional filmmaking. Thus there are no clichés or stereotypes conveying the views of the Jews and Arabs living in the enclave. THE CONGRESS is a visual fast moving animated tour de force by Ari Folman showcasing alternate realities. An aging actress sells her digitally scanned cinematic image for future film productions, thus signing herself away and maintaining her digital beauty forever.  Twenty years later after her contract expires she emerges in the future cartoonist society run by the pharmaceutical industry.  Drugs are sold which permit individuals to become any persons they want to be as cartoon characters, a chemical society severely polluted by hallucinations. After the breakdown of that future cinematic image driven society, the actress ‘awakes’  and longs for a world of truth without chemicals and tries to reconnect with her family. Folman touches in a most unique and original way questions like the reality status of images, digital and chemical transformations of our lives, and our phantasy lives where comic strip figures and cartoon Hollywood characters replace the imagery of authentic experiences. But the superbly executed visual overload of THE CONGRESS leaves little room for reflection. Somehow I felt more at home viewing his acclaimed WALTZ WITH BASHIR. The documentary  BEFORE THE REVOLUTION by Dan Shadur covers a relatively unknown episode of Israel’s foreign relations, the close collaboration between Iran and Israel during the sixties and seventies shaped by the mutual antagonism towards the Arab world and clear economic interests. Iran provided oil and Israel paid through economic, military, and intelligence assistance. During that period thousands of Israelis formed a community in Teheran enjoying a luxurious life.  Shadur generates in interviews with secret service agents and diplomats and old home movies amazing insights into that life, including the suggestion that Israel was involved in the initial phase of constructing Iran’s nuclear industry. Saul Bass’ appealing 1974 science fiction midnight movie PHASE IV which is rarely shown but has cult status depict tiny ants taking over an Arizona desert area. They wage a successful war against two government funded scientist who try to eradicate them. The ants are super intelligent and adapt rapidly to the offensive strategies embraced by the scientists leaving no escape routes. One scientist is killed and the other taken hostage but kept alive.

The expansion of the New York Jewish Film Festival is most welcome since it provided a better grasp of the variety of Jewish themed or produced films. Adding a master class and a symposium provided important platforms to reflect about the festival and filmmaking. 

Claus Mueller

filmexchange@gmail.com