FREE SHORT FILM SPOTLIGHT #8

Drama Canada (2014) 17 minutes | French w/ English sub

Josef et Aimée is a magical childhood love story about two Jewish children orphaned in the south of France during WWII. In this story of childhood love, loss and struggle, a young boy's quest to reunite with a cherished friend takes him on a journey where he finds so much more.

Director: Ben Shirinian

Documentary Canada/UK (2014) 39 minutes | English

The Lady In Number 6 is one of the most inspirational and uplifting stories of the year. 109 year old, Alice Herz Sommer, the world's oldest pianist and Holocaust survivor shares her story on how to achieve a long and happy life. She discussed the importance of music, laughter and how to have an optimistic outlook on life.

Directed by Malcolm Clarke

Nyosha

Short Israel (2012) 10 minutes | Hebrew w/English Sub

Nyosha is a 10-year-old girl. She dreams of buying a pair of shoes during the reality of a pitiless war. Nyosha believes that because of her shoes, she will stay alive. A range of animation techniques bring together the dream and the reality, poignantly sharing Nyosha's story.

Director: Yael Dekel, Liran Kapel

16th Tel-Aviv Intl student film festival (Winner, Best Israeli short film).

- Nominated for the Ofhir award

Drama Israel (2017) 22 min. | Hebrew w/English Sub

Finding a special love letter in her locker, will make Noa struggle between a safe restrained world, and her urge to feel, at least for a brief moment - loved.

Director: Atara Frish

Drama Israel (2006) 7 minutes | Hebrew w/English Sub

One fence, four fans, and the game of their lives. This is a story about 4 men and a radio. Offside is the second short film in the trilogy by Tadmor & Nattiv regarding the Middle East conflict. This short is a fallow-up to their last short film Strangers, Offside was shot in Israel, during September 2005, at the security zone that separates between Israel and the Palestine Authority.

Directors: Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor

Drama Israel (2014) 29 minutes | Hebrew w/English Sub

Bathya is a former movie star who feels that her life is finally about to change. After years of frustration she was offered a part in a movie, but something happens in the morning of the audition, that forces her reexamine her priorities in life.

Director: Hadas Ayalon

Comedy | Israel (2016) 14 minutes | Hebrew w/English sub

Two brothers tell the story of an eccentric postman who falls in love for the first time in his life. In an attempt to help him express his love they embark on a journey in which they will experience the difference between fantasy and real love. The difference between kids' love and grownup's love from two kids' point of view.

Directors: Daniel Binsted, Ben Ziv

Biography | Hungary (2012) 5 minutes | Hungarian w/English sub

Katarina's story shows us what middle-class life looked like in interwar Czechoslovakia with a fascinating collection of snapshots taken in sports clubs and Jewish day schools, skiing in the Tatra mountains, swimming in Lake Balaton and water skiing on the coast of Dalmatia. A woman of great energy and a strong, optimistic nature, Katarina only mentions the dark days of the Holocaust briefly, when she was the only one from her family to return alive. Katarina remarried after the war, gave birth to a daughter and granddaughter, and remained ever active in the Bratislava community until her death in 2005 at the age of ninety-five.

Documentary UK (2018) 13 minutes | English

BAFTA-nominated composer and director Benjamin Till explores what it means to be Jewish in this quirky and heartwarming musical film. Till set himself the task of finding 100 British Jewish people, one born in every year between 1918 and 2017. The first shot belongs to a one-year-old in Leeds, and from then on in, with each new shot, the person featured is a year older than the last. By the end of the film, an entire lifetime of faces will have passed in front of viewers’ eyes. This is a once-in-a-lifetime film, which Till describes as “a musical postcard from British Jewish people to the rest of the world”.

Director: Benjamin Till

Documentary USA (2014) 8 minutes | English

In 1948, a group of World War II pilots, mostly from America, volunteered to fight for Israel in the War of Independence. As members of “Machal” – volunteers from abroad – this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, preventing possible annihilation of Israel at the very moment of its birth; they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force.

Comedy UK (2010) 10 min English

A short comedy about the clumsy first steps of an arranged marriage.

Director: Sam Leifer

Documentary USA (2019) 11 minutes English

“So, you know how I told you to never spit? And that you’re not allowed to spit and you shouldn’t spit? SO... I need you to spit...” And thus begins a very quirky, sometimes self-deprecating, and always heymish spit-driven DNA-journey-turned-love-letter between Peabody Award-winning filmmaker Judith Helfand, a fifty-something new old mom, and her much beloved and very spunky four- and-a-half-year-old adopted daughter, Theo. And thank G-d they call NYC home – because it’s the perfect place to embrace life as a multi-racial, multi-cultural, pan-global family.

Director: Judith Helfand

Drama USA (2019) 14 minutes | English

A few days before Passover, Fernanda, a young Mexican woman, is hired by a Brooklyn cleaning agency to work in the local Jewish Hasidic community. Despite a prolonged wait for her payment, Fernanda continues to faithfully show up for work each day at Nechama's house. An unexpected connection between the two leads to a fight for justice against the cleaning agency at fault, bridging the gaps between their very different worlds. The story behind Division Ave is inspired by true events happening to this day on the corner of Division and Marcy Ave in Brooklyn, NY. This modern day slave labor started decades ago in the early 1990's, in a different Williamsburg location. It is common practice for individuals and companies to frequent Division and Marcy early in the morning and hire a cleaning lady for the day. The women, mostly immigrants from Latin America and Eastern Europe, are often underpaid and/or sexually abused.

Director Tamar Glezerman

Drama UK (2017) 8 min | English

Inspired by the life of Józef Paczynski, a Polish political prisoner in Auschwitz during the Second World War, who became the personal barber to Rudolf Höss. Rudolf Höss was the camp commander of Auschwitz who introduced the use of pesticide Zyklon B to the killing process, thereby allowing Auschwitz to murder 2,000 people every hour.

Director: Ben Price

Documentary Italy (2017) | 13 minutes | Italian w/English sub

On April 4th 1943, a young woman finds herself on a train. A decision she makes that day saves her life, but leaves a huge burden on her conscience. Until, 20 years later, she meets a stranger, with a message for her.

Director: Matan Rochlitz

Comedy Canada (2019) 8 minutes | Yiddush & English

When Chaimie has a burning question, Leizer lends a hand. Will Chaimie learn his fate? Will Leizer feel again? Is it really Turkey Thursday? Stay tuned for next time on...Jewish General Hospital.

Director: Jamie Elman