The National Center for Jewish Film’s Annual Film Festival
May 7-23, 2023
Venue: Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline, MA
Thank you for joining us for a vibrant program of new independent films and rare archive treasures from around the world, with visiting filmmakers and scholars. Since 1976, The National Center for Jewish Film (NCJF) has rescued, restored, and exhibited films that document the diversity of Jewish life.
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Festival highlights included:
Our closing night film on May 23 – A Pocketful of Miracles – the new documentary from filmmaker Aviva Kempner (Rosenwald, Yoo Hoo Mrs Goldberg, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg, Partisans of Vilna). This New England premiere screening event included a Q&A with Aviva Kempner and Jonathan Kempner moderated by Professor Sabine von Mering.
A spotlight on pre-WWII Jewish life in the Ukraine, with a rare opportunity to see NCJF’s new 4K restorations of the Edgar Ulmer-directed 1939 Yiddish film The Light Ahead and the 1939 travelogue Jewish Life in Lwow, alongside the spellbinding new drama SHTTL, audaciously shot in Yiddish, in B&W, in Ukraine, in a single unflinching shot, and set a day before the Nazi invasion in 1941.
Two new documentaries showcase the history of film and photography, particularly these mediums’ persuasive power and impact on collective memory: 1341 Frames of Love and War and Hollywood & WWII.
The new inventive drama June Zero, set during the 1961 Eichmann trial in Israel, is paired with the elucidating documentary The Trial of Adolf Eichmann about this benchmark historical event.
A diverse line-up, from the suspenseful March ’68, a romance playing out during the student protests and antisemitic purges in 1968 Poland, to a documentary and panel discussion about Thomas Jefferson and the Jewish family that rescued his beloved Monticello. And a special 75th anniversary 35mm screening of the 1948 film noir Open Secret.
