A new generation, fresh takes at the Boston Jewish Film Festival
The woman in the movie still is instantly identifiable. There is the brown hair bordering on black, the dark brows, the dusky skin — the same shade as the faceless, shirtless man to whom she's clinging on the cover of the Boston Jewish Film Festival promotional brochure.
But they're not both Jews. He's Israeli; she's Palestinian. What they both are, however, is human, rendered real in the largely improvised "Strangers," which has them falling in love on vacation in Berlin and then trying to stay in love despite their differences. One isn't good, one bad. There is no obvious right and clear-cut wrong.
It's a view of the Arab-Israeli conflict befitting the festival's theme: a new generation's view of age-old issues, from religious study to intermarriage to the Holocaust. The turns are often familiar, many of the twists new. That's the result, in part, of focusing on filmmakers raised in the relative calm of the 1980s, the so-called Generation X. Their handle on Jewish identity around the world is naturally different than that of their parents and particularly their grandparents who lived through World War II.
"What we're learning from the films is that the common perceptions, the common wisdom, about Gen X [as slackers] isn't always right," said Sara L. Rubin, the festival's executive director. "This is a very thoughtful group of filmmakers asking new questions, looking at things with maybe the potential for new endings, new solutions."
The 20th annual festival, which begins Wednesday and continues through Nov. 16 at various local venues, features 46 independent films in 13 languages, as well as panel discussions and introductions by directors, actors, and the subjects of some of the films themselves. The festival sells about 13,500 tickets a year, which includes fans who see multiple movies, and the vast majority of the audience is Jewish, according to Rubin. But many of the movies chosen by new artistic director Noa Rembiszewski, herself a Gen-Xer, resonate well beyond religion.
For instance, "Max Minsky and Me" may be about a brainy German Jewish girl on the verge of her bat mitzvah, but it's also about becoming aware of boys, the breakup of a family, and learning to play basketball. Director Anna Justice, making her movie debut, has captured that final sweetness in many girls' lives, thanks in part to the sweet, funny screenplay by Holly-Jane Rahlens, an American living in Berlin who wrote the similarly named book for young adults. (Parents, take any daughters who can deal with subtitles.)
Of her generation's new take, Justice wrote in an e-mail exchange, "There is a generation now, the grandchildren's generation. . . . This distance allows them to dare and break the silence of the survivors of the Holocaust and the war and deal with history on a very personal level."
"Holy Land Hardball," on the other hand, is absolutely about baseball, but often hilariously about a whole lot more. In this English-language documentary about the formation of Israel's first professional baseball league, Bostonian Larry Baras is convinced he can make Israelis care about baseball, and he does to a surprising degree with the help of former Red Sox general manager Dan Duquette and a roster of Dominican and older players that would do the "Bad News Bears" proud.
"This easily could have been a schmaltzy, klezmer film and that's the last thing we wanted to make. . .," said co-director Brett Rapkin, who was also behind "Spaceman: A Baseball Odyssey," about former Red Sox pitcher Bill Lee. "Both of the films I've done are totally about baseball and not about baseball. It's the world where things take place. . . . So many Jewish and, specifically, Israeli-based films are about war. This is a look at Israel through a really different set of eyes."
Added his co-director, Erik Kesten, who admitted that he and Rapkin both considered trying out for the league every single day of filming — and believed they'd have survived at least the early cuts — "It's tricky explaining our movie. We don't think of it as a baseball film, but you don't want to neglect the people who do love baseball. It's more about the creative start of a business and following that passion, having a real dream for something and going ahead and pursuing it. Israel has a lot of that. That it exists is sort of a pipe dream. It makes it the perfect country to set a movie like this."
Without giving too much away, it's accurate to say that the ballplayers had their opening day, an entire summer season, and so far little after that. The movies that play festivals such as the Boston Jewish Film Festival often have similar experiences: big dreams, smaller realities. The festivals become a way to get attention, an audience, and, for the lucky few, an actual distribution deal, harder than ever to come by in this economy.
"The Deal," which opens the festival at the Museum of Fine Arts and features name stars — William H. Macy, Meg Ryan, and LL Cool J — was no different. Director and co-writer Steven Schachter (along with Macy) said they've had more trouble getting the movie to the big screen than the moviemakers within the movie did theirs. It is slated for release on video in January.
"The Deal" (based on the satirical novel by Peter Lefcourt), is an affectionate — rather than the usual angry — send-up of Hollywood. The plot involves turning a period piece on former British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, a Jew, into an action flick with an African-American star who happens to be a recent convert to Judaism. It's funny rather than offensive. Less amusing, according to Schachter, was running out of money while filming in Romania and having to shut down in order to raise more cash from investors. As a result, Lisa Kudrow had to drop out; Ryan was in as Macy's studio foil and eventual love interest.
"The bigger issue and hurdle than a movie about Jews and movies, was just the fact that it's about Hollywood at all," said Schachter, who will be on hand opening night for the showing of his feature film directorial debut. "That anyone even found the Jewish angle was kind of a surprise, at least to me. It's the comic premise of the movie, in a certain way."
Naturally Judaism, or at least being Jewish by birth, plays some part in all of the festival showings, but to hugely varying degrees. Rubin, who heads up the festival, said in fiction films they look for Jewish characters, in documentaries a Jewish theme. But that doesn't rule out much, and the non-competitive festival's entrants cover the same themes and then some as any festival without ties to the Jewish community would.
Yes, "Noodle," from Israeli director Ayelet Menahemi, is set in Israel and features an El Al flight attendant twice widowed by war. But it revolves around what transpires when her Chinese housekeeper disappears and she is forced to care for the woman's young son. It's about overcoming loss, the love that can come afterward, and the risks required to get the boy back where he belongs. Bring Kleenex.
The award-winning "Strangers," made by directors Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv without a script, is a love story at heart, and what love story doesn't involve some sort of conflict. Both will be at the film festival, and participate in a panel titled "New Generation, New Passions, New Quests." The French-made "Cycles" circles three generations of one family, where hard memories intersect with the often humorous acts of moving on. Director Cyril Gelblat is just 28, but his viewpoint seems to be of someone much older; he doesn't necessarily side with the younger characters in "Cycles," which will close the festival with him present.
"Bon-Papa, A Man Under German Occupation," director Leila Ferault's documentary about her non-Jewish paternal grandfather and what he did during the war, is more traditional thematically but still has a twist of the unexpected toward both the choices he made and the Vichy regime in power in France at the time. It is also about resolve in the face of silence. Ferault, whose maternal grandparents were Jewish victims of the Holocaust, is also expected at the festival.
Then there's "Emotional Arithmetic," with Susan Sarandon, Gabriel Byrne, and Max von Sydow, about a woman whose past during World War II comes knocking along with two visitors, and "Pauwels Circus," the truelife tale of a Belgian-Jewish circus dynasty. There are movies that feature flamenco, children ballroom dancing, and people searching for themselves among the rubble of their families' pasts.
"Most of the films are films that wouldn't be seen in Boston if it weren't for the festival. . .," said Rubin, who runs one of the largest Jewish film festivals in the United States. "For our Jewish audience, the variety of Jewish films we have is as great as it gets. But they're always really good films, so I want non-Jewish film lovers to come, too." 