January 13-16, 2005
Century Suncoast 16 - Suncoast Hotel & Casino

SPONSORS:

The 2005 Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film is sponsored by:               

Century Suncoast 16, Suncoast Hotel & Casino, Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada,  News 88.9 KNPR and Classical 89.7 KCNV,  Nevada Arts Council, Temple Beth Sholom, Congregation Ner Tamid, Anti-Defamation League, Amland Development and Tropicana Business Center.

INDIVIDUAL SPONSORS:

If Jewish music is a bridge between past and future, then Cantor Jack Mendelson is a walking, talking, effusively charismatic Brooklyn Bridge. This feature-length documentary film examines the roots of Askenazic cantorial music in America with Cantor Mendelson, current president of the Cantors Assembly, as its principal guide. The film’s surprising journey also visits leading cantors and aficionados such as Joseph Malovany, Ben-Zion Miller, Alberto Mizrahi, Mati Lazar, Neil Shicoff, Jackie Mason, and Professor Alan Dershowitz. Embedded in the unique art of cantorial music is both the past and the future of Jewish prayer and tradition. 
 
Following the film, there will be a live concert performance by Cantor Jack Mendelson and Cantor Daniel Friedman (accompanied by Tova Marcos Kliger).  Guest appearance by the filmmaker Erik Anjou.
 

Whitwell Middle School in rural Tennessee is the setting for this documentary about an extraordinary experiment in Holocaust education. Struggling to grasp the concept of six million Holocaust victims, the students decide to collect six million paper clips as a visual symbol, chosen for their practicality and because they were worn by Norweigians during the war as a sign of silent protest. Just weeks after a Washington Post article and a segment on World News Tonight, the students had received 24 million paper clips in some 25,000 pieces of mail, each attached to a story. Ultimately, almost 30 million would amass in Whitwell.  The film details how the students met Holocaust survivors from around the world and how the experience transformed them and their community. 
 
Moderated by Anthony Allison.

A new British romantic comedy called by critics, “a Jewish version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding” starring Summer Phoenix. A comedy set in the vibrant and colourful world of North London; SUZIE GOLD conveys the universal struggle of finding one's own identity. The film follows a young girl as she tries to establish herself outside the social conventions and traditions of her Jewish family.  (sexual content)
 
Guest appearance by the Producer Rebecca Green and moderated by Anthony Allison.

In this new family comedy from Israel, Shlomi takes care of everyone. He feeds his grandfather, bathes him and listens to his fictitious stories from World War II. He reminds his older brother to take his medication on time and intently listens to his pornographic thoughts. He calms his quick-tempered mother and mediates between her and his hypochondriac father who was thrown out of the house after cheating on her. He looks after his older sister's twins and makes sure she keeps going back to her husband who can't tell between the identical babies. And most of all, Shlomi makes sure to make everyone happy by cooking their favorite dishes. Until one day a routine math test arouses the suspicions of Shlomi's math teacher and school principal. After meeting and talking with him, they realize that a very unique personality is hiding behind this neglected and dormant boy. With their help and the help of Rona, the gardener, with whom he falls head over heels in love, Shlomi discovers himself.  (sexual content)
 
Moderated by Anthony Allison.

One of the main characters in Israeli filmmaker Danny Veret's documentary-like first feature, YELLOW ASPHALT, is the cruel Negev desert landscape. The film is a triptych examining collisions between Bedouin tribes and their Israeli neighbors. In BLACK SPOT, an oil tanker speeding down a desert highway hits a Bedouin child. When the drivers (Zevik Raz and Moshe Ivgi) frantically try to hide the dead boy, they are discovered. A standoff ensues between the unapologetic Israelis and the threatening Bedouin tribesman, while the child’s mother wails in a heap of black burqua on the sand. In HERE IS NOT THERE, tribal elders refuse to let Tamam (Tatjana Blacher), a German woman with blue, made-up eyes behind a veil, leave her Bedouin husband, so she steals away in the night. Tamam recalls happier times while desperately dragging her crying daughters through the desert, and her vengeful husband hunts them down. Finally, in RED ROOFS, when the affair between a married Israeli farmer, Shmuel (Motti Katz), and his Bedouin maid, Suhilla (Raida Adon), is discovered by the tribe, death and dishonor touch all involved. Veret's film is an unflinching portrait of oppression and the precarious intermingling of ancient customs and the modern world.
 
Moderated by Betsy Cowan and Joshua Abbey.