SPONSORS:

Century Suncoast 16, Suncoast Hotel & Casino, News 88.9 KNPR and Classical 89.7 KCNV, United Jewish Community / Jewish Federation of Las Vegas, Temple Beth Sholom, Anti-Defamation League, Jewish Community Center of Southern Nevada, Congregation Ner Tamid, Jewish Family Service Agency, Hebrew Academy of Las Vegas, Bet Knesset Bamidbar Sun City, and Tropicana Business Center. This project is funded in part through a grant from the United Jewish Community / Jewish Federation of Las Vegas.

INDIVIDUAL SPONSORS:

LAS VEGAS CELEBRATION OF JEWISH FILM PROGRAM:
(All Films are Nevada premiers)

Winner of five Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Campfire is a shining example of the nuanced, exquisitely acted dramas that are giving Israel a prominent place on the international cinematic map.

The setting is Jerusalem, 1981. Rachel, a recently widowed mother of two teenage girls, hopes to start a new life with her family by joining a religious settlement in the West Bank. But she must first convince the community's leader, Motke (the formidable Assi Dayan), that she is a worthy candidate. Despite her ideological passion, Rachel's independent ways collide with Motke's authority. He pressures her to marry and lead a more conventional life--a plan her rebellious older daughter immediately sets out to sabotage. Younger daughter Tami is more supportive, but soon experiences a trauma that will test Rachel's priorities as mother, settler, and believer.

Michael Eshet gives a delicately shaded and moving performance as the single mother of an all-female household. Beloved Israeli actor Moshe Ivgy plays her freethinking suitor, Yossi, who quietly introduces the promise of finding love and acceptance outside the "tribe" of settlers.

From the director Joseph Cedar Time of Favor (winner of six Israeli Academy Awards including Best Picture 2000), whose own parents were religious Zionists, lends an insider's authenticity to the social pressures and ideological zeal of the tight-knit settler community, comes Campfire, a story of one woman’s personal battle, but also a portrait of a political movement that has forever affected millions of lives in the Middle East.

Gloomy Sunday is a love story that takes place during the turmoil of World War II. Two men fall in love with the beautiful Ilona: Laszlo, the owner of Restaurant Szabo, and Andras, the pianist who, so inspired by Ilona’s beauty, composes a tragically beautiful song that causes people who listen to it to take their own lives. The film opens in contemporary Budapest with the celebration of an 80th birthday at Restaurant Szabo. When the pianist starts to play the haunting Gloomy Sunday, the man collapses. We then backtrack to the Budapest eatery as the turmoil of World War II engulfs Hungary. We meet Hans, a German SS officer, also in love with Ilona, who offers to protect the Jewish Laszlo from the fate that awaits him. The complicated love stories play out against the looming Nazi invasions. Gloomy Sunday is an elegantly beautiful and absorbing film.
 

Metallic Blues is a touching and amazing tragicomic road-movie, about two Israeli car dealers who risk it all in search of a better life, only to find out the most unexpected personal and historical truths. The opportunity of a lifetime has crossed paths with Shmuel and Siso; or so they think. They invest US$5,000 in a vintage 1985 Lincoln Continental Limousine and plan to sell it in Germany for €50,000. They ship the car to Germany, and bring themselves and their dreams to Hamburg where their nightmare begins. Meanwhile, Shmuel experiences a very disturbing hallucination. Family stories of the Holocaust are taking over his mind.

A film about friendship and reconciliation Metallic Blues is surrounded with the memories of the dark days in the history of Germany and Israel.

Natalie Portman stars alongside Hanna Laszlo, winner of the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. While in Jerusalem, Rebecca (Portman) breaks off her engagement. Emotional and heartbroken, she flees from her ex-fiancé to get her life together. Without a destination, she gets into a cab driven by Hanna (Laszlo), who is on her way to Jordan’s Free Zone to pick up some money owed to her. Once there, a third party named Leila breaks the news that the money has vanished. The three women travel together with unresolved dilemmas while histories of loss and suffering suffuse the conversations in this gripping tale about displacement and personal identity. Portman gives a breathtaking performance in Free Zone, particularly in the film’s sublime single-take opening shot.


Divided We Fall

Sunday, January 15, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
Czech Republic, 2000, 117 minutes
Czech/German with English subtitles
Directed by Jan Hrebejk
Presented by Jewish Family Service Agency
Tickets: $10.00
Call 228-4744


Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language film, Divided We Fall is set in a small Czech town occupied by the Germans during WWII, this dramatic, yet touching, film shows how ordinary people can do heroic things, almost in spite of themselves. David, a young Jew who has escaped from a concentration camp and returned to his home town, is given refuge by Josef and Marie Cizek, a childless Czech couple, who now must do everything to prevent the authorities from discovering him and ordering the execution of their entire street. Things go from bad to worse when Horst, their Czech-German neighbor, a Nazi collaborator in love with, but rebuffed by Marie, threatens to place a Nazi official in the Cizeks' house--a move certain to reveal David's hiding place! A black comedy filled with the unexpected.
 

Wondrous Oblivion

Monday, January 16, 2006 @ 1:00 PM
England, 2003, 106 minutes
Directed by Paul Morrison
Presented for Milton I. Schwartz Hebrew Academy by Toni and Victor Chaltiel
Tickets: $10.00 Age 21 and under free admission.
Call 255-4500


The scene is London, 1960. Eleven-year-old David Wiseman is a good Jewish boy with one big problem: he’s in love with the game of cricket, but he’s a terrible athlete. In fact, he has been reduced to keeping score for his prep school team, who find him "wondrously oblivious" to his own ineptitude. But David’s life, and that of his attractive refugee mother and stubborn Polish father, is about to change radically when, to the dismay of their narrow-minded neighbors, a black Jamaican family moves in next door. David’s budding friendship with Dennis, his new-found cricket mentor and Judy, Dennis’s daughter, will test the bounds of tolerance and loyalty for this gentlest of boys. His eyes open to what keeps people apart in matters of race, culture, and religion and the courage it sometimes takes to overcome differences.

Wondrous Oblivion is the luminous and uplifting comic drama from British director Paul Morrison, whose 1998 Solomon and Gaenor received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. Morrison takes a charming coming-of-age story and, like its kindred spirit Billy Elliot, creates a deeply felt, masterfully acted drama that is as engaging for younger viewers as it is for adults. Brimming with the sounds of calypso, reggae, and ska that brightened London’s drab streets in the 1960s, the film captures the longings of a Jewish working-class family as they seek to move up in the world without leaving their values behind. And if you thought Bend It Like Beckham was the best thing to happen to soccer (er, football) since Pelé, you’ll love what Wondrous Oblivion does for cricket -- it might even help you understand the rules.
 

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood & the Holocaust

Monday, January 16, 2006 @ 4:00 PM
USA, 2004, 92 minutes
Directed by Danny Anker
Presented by Bet Knesset Badmidbar – Sun City
Tickets: $10.00 Call 341-6885




Directed by Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy-winning director Daniel Anker Imaginary Witness explores the ways American movies shape our perception of the Holocaust. Using rarely seen footage; first-hand accounts by directors, actors, writers, and producers; and clips from such films as The Great Dictator, The Pawnbroker, Sophie’s Choice, and Schindler’s List, the film examines Hollywood’s complex responses to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Beginning with American ambivalence and denial during the height of Nazism, the film explores the silence of the postwar years, the impact of television, and the current climate. Narrated by Gene Hackman, the documentary features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Sidney Lumet, Rod Steiger, Annette Insdorf, Neal Gabler, and Sharon Rivo.

Filmmaker Danny Anker in person.
 

Le Grand Role

Monday, January 16, 2006 @ 7:00 PM
France, 2004, 89 minutes
Directed by Steve Suissa
Presented for Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film by Toni and Victor Chaltiel
Tickets: $10.00 Call 898-0511



Struggling Parisian actor Maurice Kurtz is passionately in love with his wife Perla (Bejo) and wishes he could provide her with a better life. He earns a meager income dubbing foreign films with the help of his friends. The future begins to look bright when they hear that superstar film director Grichenberg (Coyote) is prepping a big-budget Yiddish version of "The Merchant of Venice". They all show up at a "cattle call" audition hoping to land bit parts.

To his great surprise, Maurice's reading wins him the leading role of Shylock, but then loses it a few days later when Grichenberg is forced to give it to an American star. To make mattters worse, Maurice finds out that his wife Perla is dying from cancer. Anxious about her condition, Maurice and his buddies devise a variety of scams to convince Perla that her husband is still making the movie that will make him famous.

The History of Jewish Women of Las Vegas

Sunday, January 15, 2006 @ 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Madrid B, Suncoast Hotel
Las Vegas, 2005, Approximately 7 hours
Directed by Adat Ariel Sisterhood
Presented by Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film
Admission Free




Ongoing project produced for the Las Vegas Centennial by the Sisterhood of Adat Ariel, these video interviews with prominent Jewish women of Las Vegas include (listed in alphabetical order), Rita Deanin Abbey, Adele Baratz, Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, Dorothy Eisenberg, Bobbie Gans, Rene Diamond, Tricia Kean, Wila Kohn, Hertrude Rudiak, Geri Risntchler, Jayn Marshall, Lee Schreiber, Muriel Stevens, Adelaide Robbins and Edythe Katz Yarchever. Program will run concurrently with the film festival.
 

For more information please contact: