SANTA BARBARA JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL

• Thursday, May 29th: 5:30 pm. Opening Night Gala, Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort, for All-Festival Pass holders only. Red Carpet, klezmer music, great food—and no speeches.

• 7:45 pm. A Touch Away, episodes 1-3 (2 hours, Hebrew and Russian, subtitled, TV series) It swept the Israeli Emmys and is being remade in English by HBO. When a handsome and secular Russian immigrant moves next door to a beautiful and strictly religious native-born Israeli, sparks fly. Series concludes Saturday afternoon.

• Friday, May 30th, 1:15-4:30. As Seen Through These Eyes (70 min., USA) Q & A with filmmaker Hilary Helstein. Narrated by poet Maya Angelou, this uplifting piece showcases the outstanding art created by Jews and Gypsies in Nazi concentration camps.

and

Exodus 1947 (56 min., USA) The remarkable true story of the renegade ship that defied Great Britain’s blockade of Palestine and helped ensure Israel’s independence.   

• Saturday, May 31st, 1:30 pm. Episodes 4-8 of A Touch Away (4 hours with break). See May 29th description. Q & A with producer, Zafrir Kochanovsky. A synopsis of episodes 1-3 will be provided for those who did not attend opening night. 

• 7:30 pm The First Basket (1.5 hours, USA). The rise of professional basketball and the largely Jewish players and coaches who gave it its start. And West Bank Story (21 min. USA). The clever Academy Award-winning short musical that pokes fun at both Arabs and Israelis.

• Sunday, June 1st: 8:00. Sunday Morning Live! (2 hours). At Congregation B’nai B’rith. Full breakfast, then a talk by Zafrir Kochanovsky on Israel’s booming TV and film industry.

• Sunday, June 1st.  10:30 am. Making Trouble (1.5 hours, USA). Not “Nice Jewish Girls,” comediennes such as Fanny Brice and Joan Rivers got America laughing through their larger-than-life personas. And Last Greeks on Broome Street (28 min. USA). Enter the world of the Romanites, who practice an ancient form of Judaism on New York’s Lower East Side.

• 2 pm: Three Mothers (2 hours, Hebrew, subtitled, feature film). When Jewish triplets are born in Egypt, King Farouk himself comes to bless them. But the bright promise of their childhood turns dark as the sisters hatch schemes that have unimagined, and dire, consequences. 

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All film screenings will be held at Plaza de Oro Theatres, 371 Hitchcock Way, Santa Barbara. Single tickets available at the door: $12 adult/$8.00 student. Full details at www.jewishfilmfoundation.org or (805) 964-5577.  All programs subject to change without notice.

You are in for a treat! We are going to show the marvelous 8-part Israeli TV series “A Touch Away” in its entirety at the SBJFF this year. Awarded first prize by the Israeli Film Academy and an audience favorite at Jewish film festivals around the world, this absorbing series will captivate, educate and entertain you. As one attendee posted on the Internet, “No one left the auditorium to go to the bathroom.” The curator of the San Diego JFF (which is showing it twice) said, “It’s addicting” and our screening committee couldn’t wait to view each successive episode. 

Here’s the plot: Handsome Russian immigrant Zorik Mints, his parents and sister move next door to beautiful Roha’le Berman and her family. The Mintses are secular while the Bermans are Haredi or strictly Orthodox. On top of that, Roha’le is about to enter into an arranged marriage. Sparks fly as Zorik and Roha’le fall in love, challenging their own and their families’ deeply rooted cultural assumptions and personal beliefs.

The immigrants’ sense of displacement, the intelligent Haredi girls’ resentment of second-class treatment, the two fathers’ struggles to hold their families together—all this and much more are captured via beautiful acting, photography, sharp editing and well-chosen vignettes. As the series unfolds, you will feel that you know these people and can identify with their personal struggles. Moreover, through the prism of one love story, you will get a realistic picture of the social challenges Israel is facing in its increasingly diverse society. No better example of Israel @ Sixty could be shown.