Westchester Jewish Film Festival

Westchester Jewish Film Festival 2020 at Jacob Burns: Tickets for the Westchester Jewish Film Festival at Jacob Burns Film Center go on sale February 25 for members and February 28 for non-members. This year’s festival will showcase 24 cinematic narratives and documentaries from Israel, Hungary, France, Ethiopia and the United States.

The festival schedule features Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, a documentary about the iconic Jewish musical; Those Who Remained, Hungary’s nomination for an Academy Award for Best International Feature Film; and a 50th anniversary screening of Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Contini’s, about a group of affluent Jews in prewar Italy. Mark these dates:

Opening Night

The festival opens on March 24 with the screening of two films. The romantic comedy, My Polish Honeymoon follows Adam and Anna, who leave their baby with parents to honeymoon in Poland where Adam will help commemorate his grandfather’s Jewish village. Anna has her own agenda to uncover some of her mysterious family history. (Tues, 3/24: 7pm, Thurs, 3/26: 9:30pm, Fri, 3/27: 4pm & Sat, 4/4: 6:45pm.) Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles (pictured) co-kicks off the festival on March 24^th. This documentary is “Director Max Lewkowicz’s love letter” to the musical Fiddler on the Roof. It is driven by archival footage of director/choreographer Jerome Robbins and star Zero Mostel along with commentary from Lin-Manuel Miranda, Chaim Topol, Harvey Fierstein, Fran Leibowitz, Stephen Sondheim and others. (Tues, 3/24: 7:15pm, Fri, 3/27: 12pm & Tues, 4/7: 2:15pm.)

Four from Israel

Four movies from Israel include: Yaron Zilberman’s Incitement, (pictured) that was the winner of the Ophir Award for Israel’s Best Feature Film. This thriller chronicles the 1995 assassination of Yitzhak Rabin through the eyes of Yigal Amir, the political activist who murdered him. (Sun, 3/29: 7:05pm, Fri, 4/3: 6pm & Sun, 4/5: 7pm) Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian’s Fig Tree examines the impact of the civil war in 1980s Ethiopia on the lives of ordinary people. Its focus is a 16-year old Jewish girl who must leave her Christian boyfriend behind when her family decides to flee to Israel. (Fri, 3/27: 2:20pm. Thurs, 4/2: 12pm & Sat, 4/4: 12pm)

Nadav Lapid’s Synonyms (pictured) follows the story of Yoav who, upon completing service in the Israeli army, moves to Paris where he refuses to speak Hebrew. This exploration about Israeli identity won the Berlin Film Festival’s top prize in 2019. (Wed, 3/25: 8:45pm, Thurs, 3/26: 12pm & Fri, 4/3: 12pm) Finally, the multiple award-winning, Advocate offers a dynamic portrait of Lea Tsemel. The Jewish-Israeli attorney who has defended Palestinians in court for five decades. (Thurs, 3/26: 2:30pm, Sat, 3/28: 12pm & Thurs, 4/2: 2:15pm.

Three standouts

Hailed as a must-see, Those Who Remained, is a poignant love story about two Holocaust survivors in post-war Hungary. The story follows Aldo who survived the camps and Klara, who, as a teen, lived with her difficult great-aunt when her parents were sent to the camps. Their redemptive, though unlikely, father-daughter friendship is questioned when the Soviet’s rise to power in Hungary. (Fri, 3/27: 9:10pm, Sat, 3/30: 5:30pm. Sun, 4/5: 12pm & Mon, 4/6: 2:30pm.)

Another must-see at the festival is Director Kirill Mikhanovsky‘s Give Me Liberty (pictured). This portrait of an African American medical transport driver in Milwaukee takes a humorous turn when he has to balance the needs of his special needs clients with a dozen elderly “kvetching” Russian funeral guests. (Sat, 3/28: 5:15pm, Tues, 3/31: 6:35pm & Thurs, 4/2: 8:30pm) Saving (one of) the bests for last, producer Dan Friedken makes his directorial debut with The Last Vermeer.  A “twisty thriller about art theft and forgery featuring Claes Bang and Guy Pearce – which serves as the festival finale. (Tues, 4/7: 7:30pm)

And two classics

In years past, the Westchester Jewish Film Festival has offered retrospectives on Jewish Film makers such as Joan Micklin Silver and Karl Reiner. This year, the festival presents a fresh look at two films from the 70s about the Jewish experience in pre-war Europe, Joseph Losey’s Mr. Klein and Vittorio De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Contini’s.

Losey’s 1976 drama, Mr. Klein, (pictured) portrayed by Alain Delon, is about an unscrupulous catholic art dealer who buys paintings for a fraction of their worth from Jews fleeing Nazi-occupied Paris. Until one day, he finds a Jewish newspaper addressed to him on his doorstep and he must prove his Aryan heritage to the police. (Fri, 3/27: 2:10pm, Thurs, 4/2: 12pm & Sat, 4/4: 12pm)

Finally, the festival celebrates the 5oth anniversary of De Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Contini’s that won the 1970 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. The evocative and atmospheric film follows the rise of anti-Semitism in pre-war Italy. And its impact on the romances and class conflicts of a group of well-off Jews as they sequester themselves in their idyllic home. (Wed, 3/25: 6:30pm, Wed, 4/1: 4:55pm & Sun, 4/5: 2pm)

See the full festival lineup at Jacob Burns Film Center

All photos courtesy of the Jacob Burns Film Center