How does an atheist goy come to say thank God for the 26th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival? In the late 1950s, as a white bread but deracinated welfare kid living in an affluent Long Island beachtown, I stumbled down a kind of cultural rabbit-hole that still nurtures me. Leaving the volatile but sheltering cocoon of my British father's rule over all life choices from food to TV, I plunged into the planned chaos of a secular Jewish high school where the choir teacher thought I deserved a lead in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, where my Latin teacher charitably passed me through four years of Roman history and Latin roots, where I would get a leg up to college and finally kiss a certified Jewish boy as his parents slept unaware in the next room.
My life was like the scenario of a Jewish documentary, a form that defines half or more of the films at the Jewish Film Fest. These films are often extremely personal, self-consciously intellectual examinations of subjects you might never have asked about: how to start a gay/straight alliance at a private, religiously-oriented Jewish high school; how to be the first Israeli Playboy bunny; or how to evacuate a sunny beachtown against the will of the residents. Whether or not you approve of modern Israel, you'll understand how it ticks and how oddly American it is by attending the SF Jewish Film Fest, from July 20 to August 7 at venues in San Francisco (Castro Theatre, 7/20-27), Berkeley (Roda Theatre at Berkeley Rep., 7/29-8/5), Mountain View (Century Cinema 16, 7/29-8/3) and San Rafael (Smith Rafael Film Center, 8/5-7). More info at SFJFF.org.
Hineini: Coming Out in a Jewish High School When Shulamit Izen began classes at the New Jewish High School (the slang for which is "New Jew"), she made what would seem to be two irreconcilable decisions: to immerse herself in the religiously charged environment of a private academy dedicated to having kids from reform to orthodox study under one roof, and to proclaim herself a lesbian and start lobbying for a gay/straight alliance at a school where many classmates and their parents considered such a step to be a spiritual abomination.
Izen, soft-spoken and admittedly na�ve in the beginning, emerges by film's end a wiser person who has still not allowed herself to become cynical or despairing at how hard it is to get religious Jews to abandon what the school's bearded, avuncular headmaster refers to as thousands of years of teaching about the unsuitability of homosexuality in the Jewish tradition. Director Irena Fayngold takes us through the process, excruciating at times, of changing one mind at a time. The hardest to reach were the four closeted faculty members whose support would prove critical. The film ends in an upbeat but realistic fashion: Izen gives a speech to a school assembly that resembles the one given by the idealistic schoolboy in Get Real. But when all is said and done, Izen and her out friends graduate, leaving it unclear who among the younger kids will pick up the mantle.
Paired with a terrific short: The Tribe is an instant history, with a witty narration by Peter Coyote, explaining how the creation of the Barbie doll (by a Jewish woman) can be seen as a metaphor for thousands of years of Jewish persecution and endurance. (Castro, 7/27; Berkeley, 7/30)
The First Zionist Bunny Shiri Shahar's marathon account of how nine biological females and one transgender candidate sought to win a national contest to host Israel's Playboy TV channel is an amusing examination of a still rather macho society's efforts to loosen up and take a celebration of sex in stride. The father of a contestant (in a small town near the now war-torn border with Lebanon) notes that people from there never get on TV unless they're linked to a terrorist bombing, then jokes that the Playboy contest is "a peaceful bombing." On the other hand, one contestant, a recent immigrant, suggests that her entry has led her to be labeled "a Russian whore."
Contestant Noga Shachar quickly stands out: lanky with, as she notes almost proudly, "tiny boobs," the somewhat intellectual-appearing young woman (in her wireless glasses) causes shock waves among fellow contestants and the judges. Shachar's trump card is Playboy Israel's desire to "re-brand" itself — removing the image of high-class pornography, to be replaced by one that is more playful, thoughtful and less likely to inspire protests. Grouchy picketers are seen handing fliers to the contestants as they enter the competition. Shachar's big moment comes when she goes jaw-to-jaw with Mr. Playboy in the LA mansion. "Hugh, you're stealing my lines." (Castro, 7/22; Berkeley, 7/29)
5 Days Yoav Shamir's first-hand report on the August 2005 evacuation of 8,000 religious Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip is a valuable insider's view into the unique institution that is the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and how an army of citizen soldiers can find itself compelled to destroy the dreams of the very citizens it is sworn to guard. The film shows how Israeli disengagement from Gaza, whatever its intensions, also sowed certain seeds that are bearing terrible fruit in the most recent warfare between the IDF and Palestinian guerrilla groups.
Shamir displays the rubble of destroyed settler houses, revealing the Gaza that was restored to the Palestinians to be a pretty desolate place. Still, the IDF, under the cheerful and patient leadership of General Dan Harel — a kind, bearded patriarch who is the antithesis of our image of a gung-ho field officer — gets good grades for playing a mostly nonviolent cat-and-mouse game with a score of cagey settler leaders, who try all means at their disposal to disrupt the evacuation. "They'll want to puncture tires or provoke us. This isn't a life-threatening situation. The only risk is humiliation. We don't want to be humiliated." (Castro, 7/27; Berkeley, 7/30)
 |
Playwright Tony Kushner in Wrestling with Angels. |
Wrestling with Angels: Playwright Tony Kushner An exhaustive, intensely personal and often funny look at the life of arguably America's most important queer playwright. In the early 1990s, LGBT readers greeted the published edition of Angels in America as if it were the great American novel. Director Frieda Lee Mock admits that her coverage of Kushner amounted to a kind of filmic "stalking," but the effort pays dividends.
The film is especially strong on tracing the young Kushner's rocky road to coming out (his elderly father is eloquent in recalling his own mixed feelings about his pudgy, obviously queer son) and his passionate professional relationships, especially with Angels in America director George C. Wolfe. Highlights include electrifying performance excerpts by Meryl Streep. (Berkeley, 8/3)
Forgiving Dr. Mengele Bob Hercules and Cheri Pugh profile a feisty little old lady from Terre Haute, Indiana, Eva Kor, who is on a seemingly quixotic mission: to forgive the dark angel of the Nazi death camps, Dr. Josef Mengele. Eva and sister Miriam were survivors of the heinous medical experiments conducted by Mengele. In the late 1980s, while trying to discover what Mengele had done to induce the kidney disease that was slowly killing her sister, Kor consulted with a former SS officer, one of the few exonerated during post-war trials. The knowledge that this ex-Auschwitz physician was himself plagued by nightmares proved a catalyst, inspiring Kor to forgive Mengele and his accomplices, while not forgetting their crimes, at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the camps.
The film confronts the meaning of forgiveness. Eva Kor is praised and reviled in turn by other Holocaust survivors. Some of the remaining Mengele twins are particularly bitter. A still active real-estate agent, initially refused listings due to a thick Hungarian accent, Kor is seen concocting her own "white-trash cookbook," ironing toasted cheese sandwiches for bemused family members, founding a Holocaust memorial museum in a Terre Haute shopping mall, and enduring an emotional standoff with Palestinian activists seeking empathy for their plight. Kor explains that it's impossible for her to attempt such an emotional journey while fighting continues in Israel/Palestine. This is why we go to the SF Jewish Film Festival. (Castro, 7/25; Berkeley, 8/1)