FARTHEST NORTH JEWISH
FILM FESTIVAL 2024
Resilience through the Arts
Resilience through the Arts
THREE FILM EVENTS
THREE FILM EVENTS
with authentic music & culinary treats
celebrating the stories, joy, and resilience
of Jewish cultures and people
February 11th, 18th & 22nd 2024
February 11th, 18th & 22nd 2024
at the Alaska Coffee Roasting Company
at the Alaska Coffee Roasting Company
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OPENING
CELEBRATION
Prologue:
A Modern Inheritance of Yemini Dance
&
Feature Film
Neighbours
Sunday,
February 11, 2024
Doors open at 3:30 pm
4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Neighbours 'Nachbarn’
Written & directed by Mano Khalil
Drama, Kurdish with English subtitles, 124 minutes, NR
Switzerland / France 2021
In a Syrian border village in the early 80’s, little Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived with the goal of making strapping Panarabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. To enable paradise to come to earth, he uses the rod to forbid the Kurdish language, orders the veneration of Assad and preaches hate of the Zionist enemy- the Jews. The lessons upset and confuse Sero because his long-time neighbors are a lovable Jewish family. With a fine sense of humor and satire, the film depicts a childhood which manages to find light moments between dictatorship and dark drama. Little Sero gets involved in dangerous pranks with his friends, and dreams of having a television so he can finally watch cartoons. But he also experiences how the adults around him are increasingly crushed by the despotism, violence and nationalism which surround them.
NEIGHBOURS was inspired by the director’s personal experiences, and so his bitter-sweet memories connect the Syrian tragedy to the present.
Written & directed by Mano Khalil
Drama, Kurdish with English subtitles, 124 minutes, NR
Switzerland / France 2021
In a Syrian border village in the early 80’s, little Sero attends school for the first time. A new teacher has arrived with the goal of making strapping Panarabic comrades out of the Kurdish children. To enable paradise to come to earth, he uses the rod to forbid the Kurdish language, orders the veneration of Assad and preaches hate of the Zionist enemy- the Jews. The lessons upset and confuse Sero because his long-time neighbors are a lovable Jewish family. With a fine sense of humor and satire, the film depicts a childhood which manages to find light moments between dictatorship and dark drama. Little Sero gets involved in dangerous pranks with his friends, and dreams of having a television so he can finally watch cartoons. But he also experiences how the adults around him are increasingly crushed by the despotism, violence and nationalism which surround them.
NEIGHBOURS was inspired by the director’s personal experiences, and so his bitter-sweet memories connect the Syrian tragedy to the present.
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2
DOUBLE FEATURE: TWO FILMS w/DIRECTOR Q & A
Broken Dolls w/ Tracy
Whipple Q & A following
&
Mendelsohn's
Incessant Visions
Sunday,
February 18, 2024
Doors open at 3:30 pm
4:00 PM - 7:45 PM
Broken Dolls
Directed by Tracy Whipple & Gilles Bovon
Documentary, English with some German subtitles, 81 minutes, NRUnited States / Germany 2023
1939: a Jewish child escapes Germany- due to the tenacity of her mother- on a ship to Shanghai. They make it to the Jewish Ghetto, and the young girl begins her journey toward 'losing Jewishness'. 80 years later in America, with the help of her daughter, she fights to reinstate her lost German citizenship, and plans a trip to the country that tried to eliminate her. A new journey, revealing deeply buried family secrets.
*Special Q&A with Writer & Director Tracy Whipple following the film!
Directed by Tracy Whipple & Gilles Bovon
Documentary, English with some German subtitles, 81 minutes, NRUnited States / Germany 2023
1939: a Jewish child escapes Germany- due to the tenacity of her mother- on a ship to Shanghai. They make it to the Jewish Ghetto, and the young girl begins her journey toward 'losing Jewishness'. 80 years later in America, with the help of her daughter, she fights to reinstate her lost German citizenship, and plans a trip to the country that tried to eliminate her. A new journey, revealing deeply buried family secrets.
*Special Q&A with Writer & Director Tracy Whipple following the film!
Mendelsohn's Incessant VisionsDirected by Duki Dror
Documentary, Hebrew, German
Subtitles: French, English, 71 min, NR
He drew sketches on tiny pieces of paper and sent them, from the trenches, to a young cellist waiting for him in Berlin. She thought him a genius & after WWI, helped him become the busiest architect in Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Erich & Louise Mendelsohn escaped and wandered between continents, between wars, between success and failure. Mendelsohn’s designs, built around the world, changed architecture’s trajectory.
"[Erich Mendelsohn] was someone who greatly influenced the spirit of the places where he lived, and his spirit is still alive in these places today. However, history hasn’t remembered him.
...She was a beautiful muse, a German Jew and he was an Ostjuden, a Jew from Prussia, an artist. She was much younger than him, but had developed emotional intelligence which he relied on. He was the classic egocentric artist, who moved between despair and euphoria and she was his stability... [this] story is the relationship between the two, which opened up all the doors to creativity and success for him." Duki Dror, Director of MENDELSOHN'S INCESSANT VISION
Documentary, Hebrew, German
Subtitles: French, English, 71 min, NR
Israel, Germany 2011
He drew sketches on tiny pieces of paper and sent them, from the trenches, to a young cellist waiting for him in Berlin. She thought him a genius & after WWI, helped him become the busiest architect in Germany. When the Nazis came to power, Erich & Louise Mendelsohn escaped and wandered between continents, between wars, between success and failure. Mendelsohn’s designs, built around the world, changed architecture’s trajectory.
"[Erich Mendelsohn] was someone who greatly influenced the spirit of the places where he lived, and his spirit is still alive in these places today. However, history hasn’t remembered him.
...She was a beautiful muse, a German Jew and he was an Ostjuden, a Jew from Prussia, an artist. She was much younger than him, but had developed emotional intelligence which he relied on. He was the classic egocentric artist, who moved between despair and euphoria and she was his stability... [this] story is the relationship between the two, which opened up all the doors to creativity and success for him." Duki Dror, Director of MENDELSOHN'S INCESSANT VISION
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CLOSING NIGHT
CLOSING NIGHT
FESTIVITIES
FESTIVITIES
Short Film
Short Film
Egg Cream
Egg Cream
&
&
Feature Film
Feature Film
Vishniac
Vishniac
Thursday,
February 22, 2024
Doors open at 5:00 pm
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Thursday,
February 22, 2024
Doors open at 5:00 pm
5:30 PM - 8:00 PM
VishniacDirected by Laura Bialis, Executive Producers: Nancy Spielberg, Ori Eisen, Mirit Eisen, Taube Philanthropies, Maimonides Fund
Documentary, English & German, 93 minutes, NR
United States 2024
Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938 on assignment to photograph Jewish life. Less than a decade later these communities would be wiped out, and Vishniac’s iconic photographs would provide the last visual records of an entire world. Through his photographs, we see Jewish life and witness the Nazi rise to power. After the war, his photographs continue documenting Berlin's ruins and Jewish orphans in Displaced Person camps.
Vishniac was also an innovative science photographer. His “Living Biology” series was funded by the National Science Foundation and became a staple in the 1960s and 1970s across the United States. His pioneering techniques in microscopy transformed the nature of science photography. VISHNIAC delves into the person and story behind the photos and frames Vishniac’s legacy as a key modernist photographer and preserver of memory. Through his stunning images, VISHNIAC introduces new audiences to a lost world that is quickly fading from our grasp.
Documentary, English & German, 93 minutes, NR
United States 2024
Roman Vishniac is best known for having traversed Eastern Europe from 1935 through 1938 on assignment to photograph Jewish life. Less than a decade later these communities would be wiped out, and Vishniac’s iconic photographs would provide the last visual records of an entire world. Through his photographs, we see Jewish life and witness the Nazi rise to power. After the war, his photographs continue documenting Berlin's ruins and Jewish orphans in Displaced Person camps.
Vishniac was also an innovative science photographer. His “Living Biology” series was funded by the National Science Foundation and became a staple in the 1960s and 1970s across the United States. His pioneering techniques in microscopy transformed the nature of science photography. VISHNIAC delves into the person and story behind the photos and frames Vishniac’s legacy as a key modernist photographer and preserver of memory. Through his stunning images, VISHNIAC introduces new audiences to a lost world that is quickly fading from our grasp.
Photos (c) Gift of Mara Vishniac Kohn, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, University of California, Berkeley
Egg Cream Written & directed by Nora Claire Miller & Peter MillerDocumentary, English, 15 minutes, NR
United States 2020
EGG CREAM is a short film about the enduring meaning of a beloved chocolate soda drink born on the Jewish Lower East Side. The classic "egg cream" contained neither eggs nor cream—it was a product of necessity and hardship, but became a source of joy and sweetness. Through a tour of egg cream establishments led by a filmmaker and his young daughter, exhaustively researched archival imagery, and an eponymous song by Lou Reed, EGG CREAM examines the Jewish experience in America and the mythology of a simpler time.
United States 2020
EGG CREAM is a short film about the enduring meaning of a beloved chocolate soda drink born on the Jewish Lower East Side. The classic "egg cream" contained neither eggs nor cream—it was a product of necessity and hardship, but became a source of joy and sweetness. Through a tour of egg cream establishments led by a filmmaker and his young daughter, exhaustively researched archival imagery, and an eponymous song by Lou Reed, EGG CREAM examines the Jewish experience in America and the mythology of a simpler time.
COME TOGETHER AND CELEBRATE JEWISH CULTURE THROUGH FILM!
COME TOGETHER AND CELEBRATE JEWISH CULTURE THROUGH FILM!
Let us know if you'll be attending!
Let us know if you'll be attending!