The FSLC & The Jewish Museum's NYJFF -- 20th edition -- opens Wednesday, Jan. 12

The Jewish Museum and the Film Society of Lincoln Center join their usual forces to present the annual  New York Jewish Film Festival (NYJFF, this year in its 20th incarnation!) at the usual three Manhattan venues -- the Film Society’s Walter Reade Theater, The Jewish Museum itself, and The JCC, beginning this Wednesday January 12 and continuing through January 27, 2011. This year's fest includes 36 features and shorts from 14 different countries. Of these, 31 will be premieres -- world,  U.S. or New York -- and, as usual, will provide a diverse global perspective on the Jewish experience, past and present.

How diverse? How's this: From Yoav Potash’s documentary Crime After Crime that takes place in nearly-present-day Calfornia to Avi Nesher's narrative movie The Matchmaker set in 1968 Haifa, which has been nominated for seven Israeli Academy Awards. The former, above, depicts the legal battle to free a California woman imprisoned for over a quarter century due to her connection to the murder of the man who abused her. She finds her only hope for freedom when two attorneys – one of them an Orthodox Jew – step forward to take on her case. The latter, below, introduces us to Arik, a teenage boy growing up in Haifa who gets a job working for a matchmaker who promises to get you what you need, not what you want. This Holocaust survivor has an office located in a seedy neighborhood in the back of a movie theater that shows only love stories and is run by a family of seven Romanian dwarves.

Don't know about you, but I'd call these two movies pretty diverse. And they're just a start. As usual with the yearly NYJFF, the line-up looks terrific on paper and if the program's two-decade history acts as any guide, it will prove so upon viewing, as well. As of today, I've seen only two of the films, both worthwhile: Stalin Thought of You, which I'll report on soon, and Lilly Rivlin's lovely, informative Grace Paley: Collected Shorts (below), which I reviewed during last year's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (that review is here.)

In the days to come I'll see as many of the films as I have time for and cover them at this blog. To view the entire NYJFF program, and maybe order tickets, click here.

Tabakman/Doster's surprising (and very hot) EYES WIDE OPEN gets a theatrical run

It was only three weeks ago that EYES WIDE OPEN (Eynaim Pekukhot) made its New York debut as part of the 19th New York Jewish Film Festival, and now here it is opening in a commercial run.  This is the first full-length, narrative film from director Haim Tabakman (shown below), in which, as writers, he, along with producer Rafael Katz, French connection David Barrot and the film's original screenwriter Merav Doster were all involved.

An ugly film to watch (the settings -- workplace, apartment and "shul" -- could hardly be more drab and unappealing), Eyes Wide Open takes place in Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, in and around a butcher shop in which one of its leading characters, Aaron, labors and which, due to the recent death of his father, he now owns.  Into Aaron's life one day comes the transient Ezri, a young man whom Aaron hires to help in the shop. (The only other major character in the film is Rivka, Aaron's wife.)  Ezri is gay (we learn this fact fairly quickly), and Aaron soon finds himself attracted to the young man.


Though this attraction grows throughout the course of the film and is returned in kind by Ezri, the orthodox community, which permits no deviation -- certainly not one this deviant -- rises to what it perceives as a challenge to its very being, as does Rivka, fighting as best she can for her man and her life (the couple has four children).  But passion, clearly new to Aaron though not to Ezri, cannot be easily halted. Though, god knows, Aaron tries.  This is one of  the great strengths of the film: How hard Aaron attempts to deflect, prevent what is happening.  "We can refrain!" he pleads with Ezri, for this is what  his religion teaches.  "We can restrain ourselves!"  This restraint builds and builds; when the explosion comes, it is overwhelming -- for both the characters and the viewers -- resulting in one of the hottest sex scenes in cinema history.  And one, I might add, in which the participants remain fully clothed.

 Eyes Wide Open, a broadside against fundamentalist thinking (and behaving), does not end with the coupling of the two men.  This action only begins the suffering to come and answers the question -- Can the true array of human sexuality coexist within orthodox religion? -- in the negative.  So effortlessly real are the performan-
ces of Zohar Strauss as Aaron and Ran Danker as Ezri, and so relentless yet believable is the screenplay in its setting-up and working-out of this face-off between immovable objects that we viewers are held captive and pummeled into submission by the enormous constraints imposed by the fundamentalist community.


I wonder: Does a movie exist that shows this community in any joyous light? If so, let me know.  If not, maybe it's time to make one.  If that is even possible without every character towing the highly constrained line that "god" has decreed.

Eyes Wide Open, from New American Vision, makes its New York theatrical debut tomorrow, Friday, February 5, at NYC's Cinema Village. A DVD release will come eventually via First Run Features.

NYJFF continues with Tabakman/Doster's surprising EYES WIDE OPEN

TrustMovies has only seen two of the 32 films in this year's 19th New York Jewish Film Festival, but both were worth the watch -- EYES WIDE OPEN (Eynaim Pekukhot) in particular. This is the first full-length, narrative film from director Haim Tabakman (shown below), in which, as writers, he, along with produ-
cer Rafael Katz, French connection David Barrot and the film's original screenwriter Merav Doster were all involved.

An ugly film to watch (the settings -- workplace, apartment, "shul" -- could hardly be more drab and unappealing), Eyes Wide Open takes place in Israel's ultra-orthodox Jewish community, in and around a butcher shop in which one of its leading characters, Aaron, labors and which, due to the recent death of his father, he now owns.  Into Aaron's life one day comes the transient Ezri, a young man whom Aaron hires to help in the shop. (The only other major character in the film is Rivka, Aaron's wife.)  Ezri is gay (we learn this fact fairly quickly), and Aaron soon finds himself attracted to the young man.


Though this attraction grows throughout the course of the film and is returned in kind by Ezri, the orthodox community, which permits no deviation -- certainly not one this deviant -- rises to what it perceives as a challenge to its very being, as does Rivka, fighting as best she can for her man and her life (the couple has four children).  But passion, clearly new to Aaron though not to Ezri, cannot be easily halted. Though, god knows, Aaron tries.  This is one of  the great strengths of the film: How hard Aaron attempts to deflect, prevent what is happening.  "We can refrain!" he pleads with Ezri, for this is what  his religion teaches.  "We can restrain ourselves!"  This restraint builds and builds; when the explosion comes, it is overwhelming -- for both the characters and the viewers -- resulting in one of the hottest sex scenes in cinema history.  And one, I might add, in which the participants remain fully clothed.

 Eyes Wide Open, a broadside against fundamentalist thinking (and behaving), does not end with the coupling of the two men.  This action only begins the suffering to come and answers the question -- Can the true array of human sexuality coexist within orthodox religion? -- in the negative.  So effortlessly real are the performan-
ces of Zohar Strauss as Aaron and Ran Danker as Ezri, and so relentless yet believable is the screenplay in its setting-up and working-out of this face-off between immovable objects that we viewers are held captive and pummeled into submission by the enormous constraints imposed by the fundamentalist community.


I wonder: Does a movie exist that shows this community in any joyous light? If so, let me know.  If not, maybe it's time to make one.  If that is even possible without every character towing the highly constrained line that "god" has decreed.

Eyes Wide Open will make its New York debut this Tuesday, January 19, at 7:30 at Manhattan's Jewish Community Center, and then will play the FSLC's Walter Reade Theater this Saturday, January 23, at 6:30pm and again Sunday, January 24, at 6.  Good news: this  film has been picked up for U.S. theatrical distribution by the relativel;y new company New American Vision.  The DVD release will come eventually from First Run Features.