New York Jewish Film Festival 2015
January 14–29, 2015
The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center
165 West 65th Street
New York, NY 10023
The New York Jewish Film Festival is the pre-eminent showcase for cinema exploring the diversity of Jewish experience around the world, presented annually by the Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center. The 2015 NYJFF includes world, U.S., and New York premieres of films from around the globe, plus special “beyond the screen” programs including a Master Class, an Artist Focus, a poster exhibition, panel discussions, and more.
The 2015 New York Jewish Film Festival was selected by Florence Almozini, Senior Programmer, Film Society of Lincoln Center; Rachel Chanoff, THE OFFICE performing arts + film; Jaron Gandelman, Curatorial Assistant for Media, Jewish Museum and Coordinator, New York Jewish Film Festival; Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs, Jewish Museum and Curator for Special Programs, New York Jewish Film Festival; and Aviva Weintraub, Associate Curator, Jewish Museum and Director, New York Jewish Film Festival.
#NYJFF
Click here for complete festival schedule.
Special programs
Artist Focus: Keren Cytter
Tuesday, January 27, 6:15pm
The Israeli artist Keren Cytter uses visual media in strikingly original ways to build powerful and affecting narratives out of skewed scenes of everyday life. Cytter’s films, video installations, and drawings represent social realities through experimental modes of storytelling characterized by a non-linear, cyclical logic and multiple layers of images: conversation, monologue, and narration systematically composed to undermine linguistic conventions and traditional interpretation schemata. Recalling amateur home movies and video diaries, these montages of impressions, memories, and imaginings are poetic and self-referential in composition, thought provoking, and inescapably engrossing.
The program includes screenings of five works, followed by discussion with Cytter moderated by Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs, Jewish Museum and Curator for Special Programs, New York Jewish Film Festival.
Master class: Susan Korda
Sunday, January 18, 2pm
Free with RSVP
Susan Korda studied filmmaking at CCNY and has worked as an editor for 20 years. With David Leitner, she directed and produced the award-winning documentary Vienna is Different. She produced the award-winning documentary One of Us, and recently completed her short narrative film Salomea’s Nose (included in this Festival). Her editing credits include the Oscar-nominated documentary For All Mankind and Sandi Du Bowski’s ground-breaking Trembling Before G-d. She was a producer on Emily Sarah Kunstler’s William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, and story consultant on Alan Berliner’s The Sweetest Sound and First Cousin Once Removed. Korda teaches at Columbia University and conducts editing and storytelling workshops in the U.S., Europe, Israel and South Africa. She is currently working on her “Jerusalem Project,” in which she is finding the similarities and differences in the dreams, fairytales, superstitions, cooking recipes and jokes amongst Jerusalemite Christians, Muslims and Jews.
The program begins with a screening of Salomea’s Nose, followed by discussion with Korda moderated by Aviva Weintraub, Associate Curator, Jewish Museum and Director, New York Jewish Film Festival.
Panel discussion: War Against War
Monday, January 19, 3pm
Free with RSVP
With wars raging in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, East Africa, Central Asia, and beyond, we seem to live in a time of perpetual armed conflict. Antiwar films have drawn attention to the horrors of war and the physical and mental devastation it inflicts on both soldiers and civilians. This panel discussion with renowned scholars, activists, artists and curators continues the dialogue about this urgent topic.
Moderated by Jens Hoffmann, Deputy Director, Exhibitions and Public Programs, Jewish Museum and Curator for Special Programs, New York Jewish Film Festival, panelists will include Kent Jones, Director, New York Film Festival, artist Harrell Fletcher, artist and author Trevor Paglen, and artist and producer Martha Rosler.
Related: War Against War screenings
Related: War Against War exhibition of antiwar film posters
On view in the Furman Gallery at the Walter Reade Theatre
Free
Great antiwar films use a wide variety of approaches to capture the physical and mental destruction war inflicts on both soldiers and civilians. The films represented by these posters focus less on the dramatic spectacle of warfare than on the inner turmoil of protagonists, using surreal story lines, radical cinematic techniques, and vivid, poetic imagery.
Panel discussion: The Zionist Idea
Sunday, January 25, 2pm
Free with RSVP
In conjunction with the world premiere of Oren Rudavsky and Joseph Dorman’s documentary film The Zionist Idea, we present a panel discussion about this crucial topic with the filmmakers and experts on the subject.
Moderated by Richard Peña, program director, Film Society of Lincoln Center, 1988–2002, panelists will include documentary filmmakers Joseph Dorman and Oren Rudavsky, co-directors of The Zionist Idea, Professor Said Zeedani, who is in The Zionist Idea, and Yael Serubavel, founding director of the Joan and Allen Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life, Rutgers University.
Related: The Zionist Idea screenings
Coming attractions: Art of the Film Noir trailer
(30 minutes) continuous viewing in the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center during the festival from noon to 9pm daily, except during other programming
Free
“A picture of tremendous excitement…A rarity of the screen… A raw slice of life…”
Such was the language employed in many trailers for films noirs during the 1940s and ’50s, whose rapid cuts, provocative narration, and dramatic scenarios made them films in and of themselves. In homage to the genre and its many talents, we have compiled noir and neo-noir trailers for 14 films from 1944–70 into a unique 30-minute video presentation.
Related: New York Noir: 1945–1948 screenings
The New York Jewish Film Festival is made possible by the Martin and Doris Payson Fund for Film and Media.
Generous support is also provided by Mimi and Barry Alperin, The Liman Foundation, and through public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. Additional support is provided by the Office of Cultural Affairs, Consulate General of Israel in New York and Consulate General of the Federal Republic of Germany.
