Dear Festival Friends,
Welcome to the Mandell JCC’s Hartford Jewish Film Festival,
our 14th annual celebration of Jewish life and people on the big screen. We are
proud to present a record 30 superb films – most of them Connecticut or Hartford
premieres - from 8 countries presented in 7 Greater Hartford venues over 10
days.
Get ready to chuckle, applaud, gasp, sniffle, howl and be dazzled!
We are honored to present the Festival with our long-time
partners, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Our new partnership with the
Maurice Greenberg Center for Judaic Studies and The Hartt School at the
University of Hartford, combines film and live music in new, exciting ways.
Children and parents alike will love Family Flicks, with an animated
Jewish folk tale and live children’s opera. On Closing Night, 70 musicians from
The Hartt School will perform an original student-composed score accompanying a
restored classic 1922 Jewish movie.
Three Reel Talk events will present directors, scholars
and film subjects following selected movies. Senior Screen will bring
delightful Jewish films to our community’s seniors at a new venue, Hebrew Health
Care.
We open with the Connecticut premiere of Hello Goodbye,
reuniting French stars Fanny Ardant and Gerard Depardieu, who are hilariously
lost and found in the Promised Land. Journey with us into the silent world of a
remote Bedouin tribe and travel back in time with a silent Jewish film. Cheer on
our Jewish hoopsters and Israeli sumo wrestlers. Strap in for a thrill ride with
Nazi-hunting Israeli agents. Hear true stories of World War II heroism and
bravery spotlighting Hartford women. Meet the courageous Soviet Jews behind the
headlines and on the front lines of our generation’s greatest liberation
movement.
South American Jewish life shapes two Argentinean entries, spanning the
centuries with touching love stories and poignant family dramas. A ballroom
dance class and a political scandal help two Israeli teens come of age. The
politics and problems of Israel and her neighbors are interpreted in two
powerful, award-winning films while a modern-day Jerusalem heroine finds her
biblical namesake’s temptations shockingly real.
Blond, blue-eyed baby Leah, a rookie war correspondent and a troubled violinist
are some of the characters introduced in the eight short Holocaust films we’ll
screen during Tribute – Observations on Survival and Spirit – Lessons from
the Holocaust. This program, generously funded by the Kirstein Family
Fund for Holocaust Education of the Jewish Commnunity Foundation, moves to the
Wilde Auditorium at the University of Hartford.
We are indebted to our generous benefactors, sponsors, donors and media partners
who help make this festival one of the most admired in the country and the
biggest showcase of Israeli and Jewish films in Connecticut.
Presenting thirty films plus live music, receptions, panels, art and more would
not be possible without our hard-working committee who have devoted hundreds of
hours screening, planning, fundraising and promoting the festival.
We are blessed with two incredibly hard-working Festival co-chairs, Mark Slitt
and Ruthan Wein. Their from-the-heart enthusiasm, love of Jewish film and
unwavering support is matched only by the superb professional, building and
administrative staff at the Mandell JCC who earn rave reviews and five stars for
this year’s mega-movie event!
Most of all, I am grateful to you, our festival fans who wait all year for March
Madness-Mandell JCC style! Let’s raise the curtain and on with the show!
Harriet J. Dobin,
Director
14th Annual Mandell JCC
Hartford Jewish Film Festival
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