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April 1, 2005
Family, terrorism and aliyah
This year's film festival includes dramas, comedies and documentaries.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
The 17th annual Vancouver Jewish Film Festival opens next week
with an excellent movie about a Syrian family as they prepare for
their daughter's wedding. It closes 10 days later with a film about
a Jewish Argentinian family meeting their daughter's Palestinian
financé. While both are about family, the two movies could
not be more different – in tone, plot or look. Such diversity
characterizes the festival's offerings ... and makes it worth attending.
All in the family
For many women, the day of their wedding is one of the happiest
days of their lives. In an arranged marriage, there is perhaps more
fear than joy. For Mona, who lives in Majdal Shams, the largest
Druze village in the Golan Heights, her arranged marriage to a Syrian
TV star also means never seeing her family again. It's a one-way
trip across the border to Syria from Israel, which has held the
Heights since 1967.
Winner of the Grand Prix of the Americas Award at the 2004 Montreal
World Film Festival, The Syrian Bride opens this year's Jewish
Film Festival. Shot on location in the Golan Heights, it is a wonderfully
acted, compelling and touching story about a family whose relationships
are tested by political realities, religious demands and community
expectations. Through these challenges, it portrays the better side
of humanity.
At the other end of the spectrum, Only Human, the sardonic
comedy that closes the festival, highlights our weaknesses. Leni
brings her fiancé, Rafi, home to meet her family and the
dinner turns into a nightmare, although, given her family –
neurotic mother, nymphomaniac sister, bratty niece, newly religious
brother and senile, former Israeli soldier grandfather – this
Shabbat is probably typical. Add to this mayhem that Rafi is Palestinian
and – unrelated to this fact – he accidentally drops a
frozen block of soup out the seventh floor window that hits Leni's
father on the head.
There are some amusing moments in Only Human, but the characters
are unsympathetic for most of the film and the humor is sometimes
just mean-spirited (or not funny). In the end, love does conquer
all though, so it's not a completely cynical look at humanity.
The film festival opening takes place at Oakridge cinemas Thursday,
April 7, at 7 p.m., and the closing takes place at the Norman Rothstein
Theatre on Sunday, April 17, at 7 p.m.
The trauma of Sbarro
On Aug. 9, 2001, a young man detonated an innocent-looking guitar
case full of explosives in the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem. Fifteen
people were killed and dozens injured. Impact of Terror explores
the long-lasting effects of terrorism through interviews with survivors,
emergency caregivers and families of the victims, who are all still
living with the physical and emotional scars of that attack.
Often difficult to watch and tear-inducing on occasion, the documentary
is a must-see for those people who say that they can understand
why a Palestinian (or anyone else for that matter) would become
a suicide bomber.
Impact of Terror originally aired on CBC's Witness
June 16, 2004. It screens at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival
with Life for Land at Oakridge cinemas on Sunday, April 10,
9 p.m., and Monday, April 11, at 2 p.m.
Discovering your home
When rescue operations brought Ethiopian Jews to Israel during
the 1990s, the new immigrants were settled temporarily in caravan
sites around the country. Many families were separated and individual
members were even left behind in Ethiopia. As of 2001, when Caravan
841 was filmed, the reunification of families was not yet complete.
This heartfelt one-hour fictional drama centres around Moshe, an
11-year-old Ethiopian boy living in an increasingly depopulated
caravan site in the western Galilee, as inhabitants move to other
parts of Israel. For years, he has been waiting for his mother to
join him from Ethiopia.
While he waits, he is cared for by Aharon, an elderly rabbi who
teaches him Torah, and Walter, an African American saxophone player
who opens a jazz club at the edge of the site. Moshe is torn between
the religious and secular worlds offered by his two guardians. He
makes his choice by the film's end, a hopeful one in what could
easily be a dim future.
Caravan 841 is being shown with The Postwoman at the
Norman Rothstein Theatre on Monday, April 11, at 9 p.m., and at
Oakridge cinemas on Wednesday, April 13, 4:30 p.m.
In addition to the movies presented, the festival is holding a free
panel discussion called Making Movies – Acting, on Saturday,
April 9, 2 p.m., at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture.
The panel is moderated by the Province's David Spaner and
features actors Babz Chula, Rebecca Harker, Rob Labelle, Brian Markinson
and Ben Ratner.
Film festival tickets can be purchased by phone at 604-488-4300
or online, www.vjff.org.
For more information on the films being screened, ticket prices
and the festival schedule, go online or call the VJFF hotline at
604-266-0245.
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