Category: TV & Film

Learning to live with autism

Owen Suskind is the subject of the documentary Life, Animated. (photo from A&E Indiefilms)

Children’s films – especially the animated variety – always make sure to highlight the moral of the story. But very few children embraced those lessons as deeply and thoughtfully as Owen Suskind.

Now in his mid-20s, Owen had a normal East Coast childhood until he suddenly stopped speaking when he was 3. His parents, Ron and Cornelia, tried every strategy and tactic to treat Owen’s autism, but he remained uncommunicative and seemingly unreachable.

Ron Suskind, the bestselling author of such nonfiction books as The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House and the Education of Paul O’Neill, relates in the beautifully crafted and irresistibly touching documentary Life, Animated that he was stunned one day to hear Owen repeat a snippet of dialogue while watching a Disney animated movie.

It took a few years, however, to figure out that Owen was using the characters, behavioral cues and ethical directives of Disney films to make sense of and deal with his own experiences. Benefiting from the dedicated attention of his mother and various tutors, Owen regained the ability to speak, interact with other people and thrive.

Adapted from Suskind’s 2014 book, Life, Animated: A Story of Sidekicks, Heroes and Autism, the documentary will see four screenings at Vancity Theatre Aug. 5-11 (viff.org). It isn’t a stretch to predict that it will be a strong contender for the year-end shortlist for the Academy Award for documentary feature.

Unexpectedly, when Ron, Cornelia and Roger Ross Williams – the first African-American director to win an Oscar, for the documentary short Music by Prudence – sat down for an interview on a Sunday morning in early May, before they presented Life, Animated at the San Francisco International Film Festival, the conversation centred on Owen’s bar mitzvah.

“When he was about 11,” Cornelia recalled, “his therapist gave me a book, which no one’s ever heard of, called God and the Autism Connection. It talks about how so many, many of these kids operate on a different emotional plane.”

“He always had been spiritual,” Ron added. “In some ways, he preserved sort of a notion of God being there within reach that kids have but, even as he grew in sophistication, he didn’t give that up. He always had this way in which he was not encumbered by the usual doubts or hesitations that become the common currency of most people’s lives as they grow.”

Ron and Cornelia (who is Catholic and did not convert) belonged to a Reconstructionist synagogue in Bethesda, Md. Owen’s bar mitzvah tutor was Miriam Eisenstadt, whose mother was the first woman to be bat mitzvahed in the United States and whose grandfather was the founder of Reconstructionism, Mordecai Kaplan.

“The question was how would we get him up to the bimah and have him do what’s needed,” Ron said. “First, we had a problem where we didn’t know what movies to go to, because he really didn’t have much of a taste for The Prince of Egypt. It just didn’t work for him.”

So, Ron switched from one Exodus story to another, pointing Owen to An American Tale: Fievel Goes West. “Basically, it’s Eastern European Jews as mice,” Ron said.

At the same time, Owen embraced the part of his parashah that discussed the commandments a person should follow.

“He’s very rule-oriented,” Cornelia explained. “He’s better now but he used to be very black and white, and rules are very important.”

On the bimah, Owen honed in on one rule in particular: never put a block in front of a blind person.

“He talked about that in his speech, the notion of special, and he broadened it,” Ron said. “He had the designation of ‘he’s a special kid.’ He said, ‘But I think God wants us to see everyone as special.’”

Williams said Life, Animated included a poignant flashback scene from Owen’s bar mitzvah until it was removed from one of the last cuts. Indeed, the director goes so far back with the Suskinds that he arranged for the editing of Owen’s bar mitzvah video. Consequently, it’s ironic and moving to see that the most savvy film buff in Life, Animated is Owen, who discerns and delineates the positive themes of Disney films to other autistic children and young adults.

At the same time that it recounts Owen’s childhood journey, the documentary follows his current path to living independently in a residential community with support.

“You can almost feel his desire – I think it’s deep in all of us – to arrive at a place of faith, of constancy, of a sense of a universe that is coherent, and a place of love and possibility,” Ron said. “He was searching for that on his own. He was often using the best of Disney to help support that architecture, which actually is a pretty good pick, if you think about it.”

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Embarking on career

Rami Katz (photo from Rami Katz)

Fish Soup, a 10-minute documentary by Vancouver-based filmmaker Rami Katz, screened at the Toronto Jewish Film Festival last month.

The film is an exploration of Katz’s family and their cultural traditions through the making of a fish soup. He has also submitted the documentary to the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre for consideration in its annual festival, which takes place in November.

“It was this program that motivated me to go on to film school at Simon Fraser University,” Katz told the Independent. “At the time, there were no documentary courses being offered, so my undergraduate film school experience was mostly in narrative filmmaking. But, in my third year, I interned for John Zaritsky, a veteran documentary filmmaker, and he ended up hiring me after I graduated. He has kept in touch as a friend and a mentor ever since, and has definitely been a huge inspiration to me.”

In addition to the industry itself, Katz has been influenced by professors, peers and his studies at the University of British Columbia.

“It has been an enriching experience to spend time with like-minded individuals who share similar passions for documentary film,” he said. “In 2014, I decided to go back to school to pursue an MFA in film production at UBC, which would allow me to grow and develop as a filmmaker, creatively and intellectually, and dedicate myself more fully to my own personal work. I made Fish Soup in a documentary class at UBC, taught by Cari Green and Bruce Spangler, both nurturing and supportive teachers.”

Fish Soup was developed after Katz told his partner, Sarah Sheridan, a humorous story about his father. After hearing the anecdote, Sheridan suggested that Katz make a film about it. He liked the idea of working on a personal project, as he had never before even considered making a documentary about his own life.

“I think everybody has a family recipe and everyone has a family story, so this film kind of taps into that and, hopefully, gets people thinking about their own stories they want to share. For me, this was also a way for me to connect to my own grandfather, whom I was named after but never got a chance to meet because he died before I was born.”

At the Toronto Jewish Film Festival screening of Fish Soup, Katz was able to include both Sheridan and his brother Raphael in the event. After the screening at the Royal Ontario Museum, Katz and his family were treated to a Shabbat dinner at the Free Times Café.

Though highly inclusive of both his family and his colleagues, Katz said creative control was paramount to successfully completing the documentary.

“I think, for a personal film, creative control is hugely important. It’s especially important if it’s a passion project, if you’re not getting paid to make it. It’s important to note here that my crew wasn’t getting paid as well, and they are putting in a lot of hours and energy and were hugely influential in the creation of the film. Sarah helped a lot with the initial concept and project logistics. She truly was a driving force behind the film and I couldn’t have made it without her help and support.”

Katz also expressed his gratitude to Ben Leyland, William Drobetsky and Felix Oltean.

When asked how Fish Soup touches on the importance of upholding familial traditions and values within the larger Jewish culture, Katz said, “I’m not very religious, but a lot of the cultural aspects of Judaism and some of the traditions are important for me. I like to celebrate the holidays and, for the past eight months or so, I’ve been observing Shabbat in my own way. Sarah and I recently hosted our first Passover seder, and we’re starting to do Shabbat dinners every now and then with friends. I think this film helped me to connect with my cultural roots and observe aspects of Judaism that are most meaningful to me.”

Katz is currently filming his master of fine arts thesis film at UBC – a documentary on the life and work of Vancouverite Jack O’Dell, 93, who was an influential figure within the African-American civil rights movement.

Jonathan Dick is a freelance writer living in Toronto. His writing has appeared in the Canadian Jewish News, and various other publications in Canada and the United States.

Film on Jewish burial process

If you have ever wondered what will happen after your death – when your soul leaves your body but you have not yet been buried – a new film by Saul Henteleff walks you through precisely that experience.

The 30-minute documentary My Jewish Death was screened at Winnipeg’s Limmud festival on March 13. In the film, Henteleff plays a recently deceased person who is taken through the steps of a mock tahara, the Jewish ritual wherein the chevra kadisha (burial society) prepares the body for its final rest. Tahara is done by volunteers and is the main focus of the movie.

The film, which took 10 years to make, includes interviews with several local rabbis, as well as the executive director of Winnipeg’s Chesed Shel Emes, Rena Boroditsky, who was present at the Limmud event, along with Henteleff, to answer questions.

photo - Saul Henteleff’s documentary shows how a chevra kadisha prepares a body for burialy
Saul Henteleff’s documentary shows how a chevra kadisha prepares a body for burial. (photo by Rebeca Kuropatwa)

When asked how it felt to play the role of someone who has died, Henteleff said, “I felt very well taken care of. I also think about the filmmaking … everything is broken down into steps. It’s, thankfully, pretty continuous from beginning to end, but we’d start and stop and reshoot. I tried to hold my breath. There are a few things going on there. More so, I had a chance to reflect on it as the edit was coming together.”

When asked if the film changed him, Henteleff replied that he was very skeptical about the whole concept before he started. “When I heard Rabbi [Neal] Rose talking about the afterlife, there were things about it that I just found to be ridiculous. As I was going through the process and the power of these things, that’s when my mind changed and my feeling about the whole thing shifted.

“These are things we hold as a community – I’m Jewish – that we identify with. I saw the value or importance and the respect that it carries: sand on the eyes, the pieces of clay sprinkled on the eyes and groin. These things have been going on for centuries … if we take it seriously, it’s very important.”

Many attendees expressed their gratitude for the film having been made and described it as a “must-see film for Jews.”

In the documentary, it is explained that men are buried with a tallit (prayer shawl) supplied by the deceased’s family, while women are generally not.

While Boroditsky assists in the tahara in the film, in reality, only men perform this ritual for men. “There was some artistic licence taken for the film,” she said. “Normally, we have women who look after women and men who look after men.”

At the screening, Henteleff shared that he was trained before the making of the film and has been volunteering with the chevra kadisha for three or four years now. He also said there were a number of people who were not comfortable with him undergoing the ritual.

“It’s pretty controversial, even when we have a conference and we do a demonstration,” said Boroditsky. “Should we do a demonstration on a live person even though we don’t wash her? Should we cover her face? To do tahara on a live person, not everyone felt comfortable with that. This film is one of a kind.

“The basics of tahara are the same. Around the world, it’s trans-denominational – Reform, Reconstructionist, Orthodox – the basics of tahara are the same…. Some of the prayers may be different, depending on who is doing it and the outfit might be different; one more piece, one less. This is one of the things in Judaism that is universal and very similar all around the world.”

Any Jewish person being buried in one of the four main Jewish cemeteries in Winnipeg must have the ritual performed. People who are buried at the Temple Shalom cemetery at Chapel Lawn have the option of having tahara done at the Chapel Lawn funeral home by trained members of Temple Shalom.

As for the casket, Boroditsky said, “A kosher casket is made from wood with no metal pieces, and usually has rope handles. It’s held together with dowels and glue, no nails. So, that can be what they would call a plain pine box.

“In Toronto and Montreal, where it is more of a commercial funeral home, they offer … a full range of caskets. In every other community outside of Toronto and Montreal – Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Vancouver – we have a choice of one casket. Our caskets are $550, to keep things as low cost as possible.”

In the case of infants less than 30 days old who have passed away, there is no tahara required. Boroditsky speculated the reason for this as having to do with the fact that, back when the rules were made, infant mortality was very high.

“If you mourned a year for every child, people wouldn’t have been able to live,” said Boroditsky. “Certainly now, the Conservative movement and Reform movement have developed rituals for services for infants, for stillborns and for babies. There has been some movement in that.”

My Jewish Death will be distributed widely in coming months. The trailer is available on YouTube.

Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.

Our national movie history

Making Movie History panelists during DOXA Industry Day at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts on May 7, left to right: Michelle van Beusekom, head of the National Film Board of Canada’s English-language production branch, and filmmakers Mort Ransen, Bonnie Sherr Klein and Anne Wheeler. Panel moderator was Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail. (photo by Fortune Hill Photography courtesy of NFB)

When it comes to their own history, Canadians haven’t had a great track record for recording their success stories. So, when Michelle van Beusekom had an opportunity to produce Making Movie History: A Portrait in 61 Parts, an anecdotal history of the National Film Board of Canada, she was thrilled to jump on board. Told through portraits of legendary artists and filmmakers who have worked at the NFB since its establishment in 1939, the free iPad app was released last month at the DOXA Film Festival in Vancouver.

Present at the launch were B.C.-based filmmakers Mort Ransen, Bonnie Sherr Klein and Anne Wheeler, who participated on a May 7 panel with van Beusekom, who is head of the NFB’s English-language production branch. The panel was moderated by Marsha Lederman of the Globe and Mail.

It took five years to make Making Movie History, which consists of 30 profiles in French and 30 in English, and van Beusekom is hoping movie lovers will watch it.

“It delivers a fascinating look at the origins of cinema in Canada and insight into the stories of early founders of cinema craft in this country,” she told the Independent.

The portraits are of individuals who participated in the NFB from the 1940s through the 1980s, with a special focus on the earlier years, when the NFB was founded as a government-funded but independent organization with a vision to primarily create documentaries in the public interest. “It created this space where talented people could practise their art, develop a filmmaking tradition in this country and use this art form in the public interest,” she explained.

Over the course of working on the app, van Beusekom gained a keen appreciation of the role of women at the NFB from early on.

“As young men went overseas to fight in World War Two, it created opportunities for women in secretarial roles, cinematography, camera, editing and directing, and many were recruited to the NFB,” she said. “When people talk about women’s cinema in Canada, they talk about Studio D, which started in 1974. Until now, the 1940s generation of pioneers of women in Canadian cinema has almost been forgotten. I learned about Gudrun Parker, Evelyn Spice Cherry, Jane Marsh Beveridge and Laura Boulton, which was huge for me. These were names we didn’t know much about and it changed our perception of women’s roles in Canadian cinema.”

The intention of the app is not to be a comprehensive overview, but to provide a portrait that ideally captures the spirit of the individuals profiled and the spirit they brought to the organization. One of those individuals is Klein, who came to Canada with her spouse as a conscientious objector and worked at the NFB. One of her projects was Challenge for Change, where she used film to address social problems such as chronic poverty. Klein was also a foundational figure at Studio D, which operated from 1974 through 1996.

She recalls the NFB as “a Mecca for documentary films, the only place in the world with a government-funded but independent filmmaking agency” in 1975, when she became involved. “We were using films to give people a voice, people who hadn’t spoken for themselves before on screen,” she told the Independent.

Newly graduated from Stanford University at the time, Klein remembers that, back then, the only documentaries around were those made by National Geographic. At Studio D, Klein helped make films by, about and for women, training and nurturing filmmakers, including camera and sound women in this country for the first time.

Things have changed since then for women in the industry, but not that much, she said. “Now, it’s superficially better. There are a lot more women in the film world and graduating from film schools and a lot more diversity among those women. But, are women really getting a chance to tell their own stories, as opposed to just being in the workforce and working on the same old stories?”

Klein noted that nine out of 10 of the last Telefilm Canada (government-funded) films were directed by men. “Women will tell you there’s still a glass ceiling,” she said. “They can only make films up to a certain budget, and they’re not making series, so it’s not great. But the NFB just made a historic commitment for gender equity across the board in all its projects. That commitment sets the bar and challenges other agencies who have lots of money, to do the same.”

According to the Women in View On Screen Report (October 2015), of the 2013-14 fiscal year’s feature-length films by Telefilm Canada, women represented 17% of directors, 22% of writers and 12% of cinematographers credited; in the under $1 million category of film investment, women directors constituted 21%; in the over $1 million category of film investment, women directors constituted four percent. Of the English-language drama TV series between 2012 and 2013, 17 of the 29 series did not have a single woman director on any of their 151 episodes, and not one of the 293 episodes employed a female cinematographer.

The Making Movie History app is available from the iTunes Canada app store, as well as at nfb.ca/makingmoviehistory.

Lauren Kramer, an award-winning writer and editor, lives in Richmond. To read her work online, visit laurenkramer.net.

Nina Simone screens

Jeff Lieberman with Sam Waymon, brother of Nina Simone and longtime band member. (photo from Re-Emerging Films)

It started as an accident,” said Vancouver-born, New York-based filmmaker Jeff Lieberman, describing the evolution of his second documentary film, The Amazing Nina Simone. The documentary has its Canadian première in Vancouver on June 16.

Speaking to the Independent from Fire Island, N.Y., Lieberman said he is a longtime aficionado of this famed American jazz singer, pianist, songwriter and civil rights activist, who passed away in 2003. He grew up listening to Nina Simone’s music and the idea of making a film about her had “always been rolling around in the back of my head, but I never really was quite sure that I could do it or was the right person to do it.”

He continued, “The bigger issue was that I didn’t really know or necessarily understand Nina Simone for a long time and it was only within the last five to eight years that I read both her autobiography and a detailed biography of Nina that helped me understand who she was – but also the amazing backstory of her classical music upbringing, her involvement in civil rights – and realize that there was a much bigger story to tell.”

The impetus for Lieberman to begin work on this passion project arose out of a visit to the southern United States a few years ago. Following a screening of his first documentary film, Re-Emerging: The Jews of Nigeria (which screened at the now-defunct Ridge Theatre in Vancouver in 2012), in Charleston, S.C., Lieberman traveled to Simone’s birth city of Tryon, N.C. He had tracked down a local Simone enthusiast committed to preserving the singer’s memory. He not only guided Lieberman to notable landmarks, such as Simone’s childhood home and a bronze sculpture, but also “basically set up all the interviews for me with people who grew up with Nina. And this was before I had committed to working on the project!”

But Lieberman did commit. He threw himself wholeheartedly into a labor of love, “focusing almost exclusively on [the film] over the last year and a half to two years,” he said.

Lieberman conducted more than 80 interviews, 50 of which are included in the film. “I spent a lot of time hunting people down all over the world and often I was fortunate and interviewed them; other times people had long passed,” he recalled. He described the process as “a lot of work, but it was fun work!”

Lieberman’s “fun work,” or research, led to the discovery that “so many different people had different visions of [Nina]. She wasn’t an easy person to sum up … she was so many different things to so many different people. She was soft and docile to some people, fiery and angry to other people, and she was brilliant to some, and crazy to others.”

He added, “Another thing that was fascinating to me was her struggle with civil rights, in terms of how much time and energy and personal safety to devote to the cause. She seemed quite torn in terms of really wanting to contribute to the movement, but … it was tough for her to reconcile where to be and where she was most effective.”

Simone’s impressive musical achievements are well known. Her music transcends genre, encompassing classical, jazz, gospel, pop, folk and spiritual sounds. The legendary musician recorded more than 25 albums; popular, soulful versions of “I Put a Spell on You” and “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” and a 1959 Top 20 hit with “I Loves You, Porgy” from George Gershwin’s 1935 opera Porgy and Bess. Moreover, her politically charged song, “Mississippi Goddam,” was revolutionary. Simone wrote and performed the piece in front of a mainly white audience at Carnegie Hall in 1964 – at the height of the struggle for civil rights in America.

Lieberman identifies “Mississippi Goddam” as one of his favorite Simone songs because she “took the entire United States of America to task on what was going on with segregation and racial injustice and, by name, she called out states and governors and groups of people for not doing enough.” However, he is quick to point out that he has many favorites because “there’s a whole other aspect of Nina Simone which is not controversial or as in your face – it’s beautiful love songs and ballads and haunting, lonely songs. And, lastly, she has songs that are stories that paint pictures of different characters, almost like a play.”

On hand at the Vancouver screening to speak from personal experience about Simone’s musical talent will be local jazz musician and Juno nominee Henry Young. Young met Simone during her three-week stint in 1968 performing at Vancouver’s old Marco Polo Supper Club, the first Chinese smorgasbord restaurant and nightclub in Vancouver’s Chinatown, which hosted the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Tommy Chong (of Cheech and Chong fame) and Frank Sinatra, Jr.

Young successfully convinced Simone that he should join her band as guitarist. He reunited with her in New York two months later, only days before Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. Three days following that historic turning point, Young took the stage with Simone at the Westbury Festival and paid tribute to the civil rights hero with a song written to commemorate the fallen leader.

Young toured with Simone for a few years, performing across Europe and for the King of Morocco. Ultimately, he decided to return home to Vancouver. He will join Lieberman in a post-film Q & A session on June 16 and will perform a musical tribute to Simone with the Henry Young Quartet, featuring Vancouver vocalist Candus Churchill.

Since the release of The Amazing Nina Simone just under a year ago, the film has screened in more than 75 different venues: in France, Denmark, the Netherlands and across the United States in Chicago, Houston, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Berkeley and Philadelphia. Lieberman recalled a notable screening that occurred in Harlem: a free, outdoor, public screening that also included a performance by Nina’s musician brother, Sam Waymon, and a Nina Simone Dance Party.

Lieberman said there are upcoming screenings of the film in Korea and New Zealand, but he is particularly excited for the Canadian première of his latest film in his hometown. He credits his Jewish upbringing in Vancouver as inspiration for much of his work, commenting that it “has always given me a value of social justice and wanting to try and do something meaningful and impactful with my life.”

He said that his previous film “and this one both touch on diversity and racism, trying to create a more just world, and breaking down barriers to see people for who they really are. I think those are Jewish values that come right from the Torah, but also the community that I was brought up in. So, that always factors into my thought process.”

Re-Emerging Films’ The Amazing Nina Simone screens at Vancouver Playhouse at 7 p.m. on June 16. Tickets are available at amazingnina.com.

Alexis Pavlich is a Vancouver-based freelance writer.

Prize winners tour Canada

Filmmakers Aleeza Chanowitz, above, and Prague Benbenisty will be in Vancouver for the Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize and to help the Jerusalem Foundation celebrate its 50th anniversary. (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)

Two up-and-coming Israeli filmmakers are bringing their films – and themselves – to Vancouver this month.

The Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize event, being presented on May 16 at the Rothstein Theatre by the Jerusalem Foundation of Canada with the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre and Chutzpah!PLUS, will feature a screening retrospective and the 2016 winning films, followed by a question-and-answer period with the Jerusalem filmmakers, Aleeza Chanowitz (Mushkie) and Prague Benbenisty (Blessed).

The Lyons Prize is awarded annually to two students from Jerusalem film schools. There is a monetary component to the prize and the jury-selected students are also invited to present their films at the Israeli Film Festival in Montreal and other festivals in Canada. “By traveling to Canada and being introduced to established film industry professionals,” reads the prize material, “the award winners are given an important stepping stone in their creative and professional development.”

photo - Prague Benbenisty
Prague Benbenisty (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)

Chanowitz and Benbenisty have presented their films in Jerusalem, and Chanowitz’s Mushkie premièred at this year’s Berlin Film Festival. They started their time in Canada in Montreal, and also presented their work in Toronto. During their stay in Vancouver, the filmmakers will tour Emily Carr University’s 3-D film-capture and virtual reality projects, as well as visit studios.

“I’ve had a couple of face-to-face meetings, a ton of phone calls and emails with Nomi Yeshua since mid-November 2015,” said VJFC executive director Robert Albanese about planning the event. Yeshua, who grew up in Vancouver and made aliyah about 25 years ago, heads the Canada Desk of the Jerusalem Foundation. The May 16 event will also celebrate the foundation’s 50th anniversary.

“Nomi had the plan to bring the winning filmmakers to Canada and I was totally on board to make this happen,” said Albanese.

As for Chutzpah!PLUS, Mary-Louise Albert, who runs the annual Jewish performing arts festival, and Albanese have been running a cooperative series of films for the past two years, so she, too, was on board to co-present, he said.

“We’re looking forward to engaging the whole community, especially young adults,” said Albanese. There is no charge to attend the event. At the reception, Yeshua will make a brief introduction, and then attendees will move into the Rothstein.

“I’ll be making a selection of past year’s winning short films and screening those,” said Albanese, “then bringing up this year’s winners to the stage and, after some brief words, screening both of their films and bringing them back up to the stage for a talkback.”

Both Chanowitz and Benbenisty began their studies at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in 2012, and wrote and directed their respective films in their third year of study. Chanowitz, who was born in Brooklyn, made aliyah a couple of months after receiving her bachelor’s degree; Benbenisty was born in Tel Aviv. Their films are very different, in part because of their differing geographies.

Chanowitz’s Mushkie, which runs just over 12-and-a-half minutes, is a day (or two) in the life of two recent olim (immigrants) from the United States, best friends Mushkie and Sari. Chanowitz plays the title character, who is secretly exploring life outside of the boundaries of her religious upbringing, and gets into a little trouble while doing so. Chanowitz’s sense of humor shows not only in the film, but in the credits, where she thanks, among many others, her parents, who, she writes, “… I hope will continue to support me, but never see my work.” Given Mushkie’s sexual explicitness, the sentiment is understandable.

Benbenisty’s 15-minute Blessed offers viewers a glimpse into Sephardi – specifically Moroccan – culture in Israel. While in the biblical story, it is the younger Jacob who steals older brother Esau’s blessing from their father, in Blessed, it is the older, overlooked and unmarried sister, Zohara, who steals – at least initially – from her soon-to-be married younger sister the blessing that is given to all brides before their wedding day. The blessing gives Zohara the ability to see the love that has always been around her, and changes not only her relationship with her sister, but herself.

And there is more to this short film. In attempting to catch Zohara’s attentions, a shy but determined suitor recites to her a poem, “Zohra Al Fassiya,” by Erez Biton. Al Fassiya (1905-1994) was a well-known and popular Jewish Moroccan singer who, when she had to leave her home country, emigrated to Israel in 1962. She fell into anonymity and represents the negation of Sephardi culture by the Ashkenazi majority in Israel until recent years. That Blessed’s Zohara hears and is affected by this poem adds significant meaning to this short film.

The Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Film Prize event starts at 7 p.m. on May 16 in the Zack Gallery.

Adults ruin friendship

Samar, left, and Linor like each other from their first conversation. (photo from R2R)

If only adults could be as brave as children sometimes. The Israeli documentary Almost Friends screens as part of Reel 2 Real’s International Film Festival for Youth April 8-15. It shows just how insidious fear and racism can be, and how much a parent or grandparent can influence a child, for better and worse.

Bat mitzvah-age girls from two Israeli schools – a religious Jewish school in Tlamim and a mixed secular school in Lod – were brought together in a pen-pal program. For most, if not all, of the religious girls, this is their first exchange with non-Jews.

The success of the written exchanges leads to the Lod girls being bused to Tlamim to meet their pen pals. The teachers take the students through a couple of trust-building exercises and then give them time to interact. It is on this day that Arab-Israeli Samar and Jewish-Israeli Linor meet and become friends. They continue to write each other afterward, but the influence of Linor’s grandmother and mother overwhelms Linor and she stops writing. Samar’s concern for Linor’s safety, lest there be a terrorist attack if Linor visited her, consoles Samar over the loss of the friendship.

The most interesting development is Linor’s change of perspective. Initially, her mother is supportive of the pen-pal program and assures a then-worried Linor that there is nothing to fear from Arabs. Her grandmother is close-minded from the beginning, warning Linor that there will always be “a sting” in the Israeli-Arab relationship. Once Linor bonds with Samar, the ingrained distrust, racism, fear and insularity of Linor’s family presents itself. Their words sway Linor who, before the letter exchange, was calming her friends’ concerns about Arabs. After the negative reactions from her mom and grandmother, she is the one telling her friends how dangerous Arabs are, while one of her friends tries to convince her, “We’re alike. We’re brothers.”

There are many things powerful about this documentary. One is the reminder of how separate from each other most Arabs and Jews live in Israel. Another is how people who are kind and loving in so many ways can also be hateful and hurtful. But the documentary also reveals cause for hope – in both the religious girls’ reactions to their Lod peers and the friendships that do exist among Jews, Arabs and Christians in the Lod school.

Almost Friends is recommended for ages 13+. The hour-long film will be followed by a discussion with R2R artist-in-residence filmmaker Jessica Bradford and an R2R board member. It screens Wednesday, April 13, at noon, at Vancity Theatre. Tickets are $9 ($6 child/youth/senior, $5 each for groups of 10+) from 2016.r2rfestival.org or 604-224-6162.

One of the new “dragons”

Soft-spoken, reserved, thoughtful. Hardly the epitome of a dragon. Yet, Joe Mimran’s definitely a dragon – one of the newest on the panel of investors on Dragons’ Den, CBC’s hit entrepreneur reality show.

The Canadian fashion designer, clothier and entrepreneur is best known for launching the Club Monaco and Joe Fresh brands. He is also a partner in Gibraltar Ventures, investing in early-stage digital businesses.

photo - Joe Mimran
Joe Mimran (photo from Joe Mimran)

The 63-year-old, Moroccan-born immigrant has spent nearly his entire life immersed in business, in ventures on his own or with family members, particularly in the clothing industry.

At an early age, he assisted his mother, Esther – who was a couturier in Morocco – in her Toronto-based boutique garment outlet. That business grew, necessitating the purchase of a small factory in Toronto’s garment district in the mid-1970s. Mimran joined to lead operations, manufacturing and finance.

“I was inspired by the design and esthetic world,” he said. “I like designing products, building stores.” He was “inspired by great prints, inspired to want to be entrepreneur.”

That inspiration evolved into Ms. Originals, tailoring suits and pants for women and, soon thereafter, Mimran and brother Saul hired designer Alfred Sung, with a goal to create their own clothing line. The Alfred Sung collection swiftly soared in popularity across the continent.

By the mid-1980s, he launched yet another line, based on the idea that a plain, white, quality cotton shirt was unavailable in the market – and Club Monaco brand was born.

“If you’re not a risk taker and abhor taking risks, entrepreneurship is not for you,” said Mimran.

“There were many people along the way of my career who said, ‘You’re crazy, don’t do this or don’t do that. What do you waste your time for doing that?’ I have stuck to my guns. Sometimes you need to say to naysayers that you have to pursue your dream.”

Unfortunately, the plan didn’t go smoothly at first. The Bay and Eaton’s didn’t want to carry the product.

“We realized that we had all these goods coming in and the only way we could move forward was to open our own stores,” he said.

They rolled the dice on a 5,000-square-foot store in trendy Queen Street West in Toronto, showcasing an array of attire. The day it opened in September 1985 saw their marketing campaign pay off in a major way, with line-ups to get into the store.

“From adversity comes something terrific,” said Mimran. “We realized, as we opened our own stores, we’ll cut out the wholesale margin.”

At the time, such a move was rare. Typically, retail stores bought through a wholesaler, he explained. “But, sometimes, you just have to dive in, make the mistakes, fix it, move forward, make more mistakes, and try different things.”

Mimran dived in, not only opening a flagship Club Monaco store in New York City on Fifth Avenue in 1995, but opening another 120 stores in the next four years. That success caught the eye of Polo Ralph Lauren Corp., who purchased both Club Monaco and Caban (another Mimran line) in 1999.

“A lot of businesspeople, having had lots of problems in the past, will try to dissuade somebody else,” said Mimran. “But your idea might be done in a new way, might resonate in a way that this very experienced person didn’t, couldn’t, anticipate. There’s always an idea that surprises people, and that leads to success.”

Mimran has continued that success, time and again.

Pink Tartan – a women’s line – was yet another Mimran venture, appearing in high-end retail outlets such as Holt Renfrew and Saks Fifth Avenue, as well as in its flagship store in Toronto’s Yorkville.

Mimran’s Joe Fresh Style, a private-label apparel line for Loblaw Companies Ltd., was launched in 2006. The label has since opened free-standing stores – the first Joe Fresh opened on Granville Street in Vancouver in 2010 and, soon thereafter, in New York City. Many others followed.

Mimran said the apparel industry is among the most competitive industries in the world. Because of this fact and his own experiences, he empathizes with the entrepreneurs who come to the Den having had tough breaks.

“No matter how good you are, or what you know, you can still fail in our business,” he said. “It keeps you pretty grounded.”

Today, Mimran sees a future of entrepreneurs that have opportunities that were nonexistent a generation ago.

“There’s more willingness to try by the new generation – millennials – who are asset light, where boundaries and borders are not an issue. They live in a virtual world and have the ability to take on more risk. They look at the world in a dynamic way that leads to entrepreneurship,” he explained. “Particularly in today’s world, where things are so different in terms of how one communicates with the consumer, all the new online fundraising channels that are available, what’s old is new, what’s new is old. It’s the Wild West out there.”

Dave Gordon is a Toronto-based freelance writer whose work can be found in more than 100 publications globally. His is managing editor of landmarkreport.com.

Experimenter first rate

Peter Sarsgaard in Experimenter. (photo from Magnolia Pictures)

It was neither random nor coincidental that groundbreaking social psychologist Stanley Milgram was Jewish, nor that his parents emigrated from Eastern Europe before the war.

“The Holocaust was a significant motivation to propel him into the areas he was searching, and he explicitly cited [it] as a background for trying to understand darker aspects of human nature,” said Experimenter writer-director Michael Almereyda. “He wasn’t enclosing or limiting how he saw the world, but the obedience experiments – which are his first experiments, how the film begins and what he’s best known for – were shaped by his speculation about human nature.”

Those 1961 experiments found that most ordinary people would reluctantly follow an order to inflict pain on another person from an authority figure who took responsibility. The controversial results, obtained the same year as the Eichmann trial though published later, suggested that Americans were capable of behaving in a not-dissimilar way than Germans and others infamously did.

Almereyda’s thoughtful, poignant and dryly comic Experimenter, starring Peter Sarsgaard and Winona Ryder, centres on the obedience experiments, the fallout and Milgram’s subsequent career. One of the finest American films of 2015 yet inexplicably overlooked, the DVD was released earlier this year and it can also be rented online.

Almereyda informs the audience of Milgram’s Jewishness from the outset, and provides several reminders in the course of the film.

“It seemed inappropriate to elide it or blur it or ignore it because it was a key part of his identity, as a man in the world but also as a scientist asking questions about human behavior,” he said. “I was aware of how deeply Jewish he was, that he married a Jewish woman who also was the daughter of immigrants, that there weren’t that many Jewish people in the community at Harvard and his friends tended to be Jewish, and how that sense of his identity was a huge part of who he was.”

As a Jew and a social psychologist, Milgram’s perspective was affected by the Holocaust.

“Milgram comes out with a very heavy quote talking about how, ‘during the Second World War, people were exterminated with the efficiency applied to making appliances,’” said Almereyda. “That’s a carefully worded and rather cynical statement, but its impact is resonant to this day. Genocide is a very efficient undertaking these days, and has been throughout the 20th century. You don’t have to be Jewish to be mindful of genocide, but we’re cognizant of that as one of the main shadows in recent human history, and he was trying to come to terms with it.”

A soft-spoken, self-described “displaced Midwesterner” and longtime New Yorker, the 57-year-old writer and director received a secular Jewish upbringing in Overland Park, Kan., before his family moved to Southern California when he was 13. His quirky independent films include Twister (starring Harry Dean Stanton and Crispin Glover), mood piece Another Girl Another Planet, vampire saga Nadja with Peter Fonda and Hamlet with Ethan Hawke and Bill Murray.

Almereyda researched and wrote the Experimenter script about seven years ago.

“It’s abidingly interesting and relevant and compelling,” the filmmaker mused during a visit last May when Experimenter played the San Francisco International Film Festival. “He left a lot of papers behind and they’re all at Yale and one can have access to them. I didn’t make up much of this movie. Almost everything, even the wacky, quirky things, is verifiably true.”

Almereyda confided that he originally wanted a Jewish actor to play Milgram, but was forced to relinquish that ideal.

“There is, as far as I know, no young Dustin Hoffman who’s a leading man right now,” he said with a smile. “Young Dustin Hoffman would have been a great Stanley Milgram.”

When Sarsgaard was suggested, Almereyda checked out his performance as Jewish man-about-town David Goldman in An Education (2009) and was instantly persuaded.

“He’s a very agile actor, he can do a lot of things and he believes that he could write a book,” Almereyda said. “You can’t say that about all leading men, you know. So whether he’s Jewish or not, he’s very equipped to play the part.”

Experimenter quickly succeeds in shifting the viewer’s mind from the lead actor’s ancestry to the more pressing question of how much empathy we feel for strangers.

“The film is meant to be a bit of a mirror, as Milgram’s work was [meant] to mirror human nature,” said Almereyda. “It’s meant to make you question your own behavior and your own life – not as an indictment but as a kind of exploration, because we can all be more conscious. That was Milgram’s hope. There’s a lot of ways that immoral or questionable or violent behavior is inescapable in life and in history, but the process of self-awareness is one way to turn the tide.”

Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.

Dementia, cinema’s darling

Julianne Moore as Alice in Still Alice. (photo by Jojo Whilden, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)

Fifteen years ago, the subject of dementia was the “elephant in the room,” a very large issue that everyone is acutely aware of, but nobody wants to talk about. If you or a member of your family developed symptoms such as forgetfulness or confusion, you kept it quiet as long as you could. The first time your grandfather found himself somewhere and did not know why he was there was but the coup de grâce, the decisive stroke that heralded the end of a lifestyle as he knew it. This was the beginning of a terrifying and tragic journey towards senility and death.

I remember my paternal grandmother; she was a wonderful cook, Polish style. Her husband took care of her until she had to be placed in a seniors residence. The topic of her illness never came up at home. My father visited her every week. My brother and I did not go with him. Then there was the telephone conversation with my aunt: she was surprised to hear that I lived in Vancouver (I had moved here eight years prior). I knew then that she had Alzheimer’s disease. It was a shock.

During the last 10 years, things have changed. Articles about dementia, in terms of statistics, symptoms, prevention strategies, caregivers and residential settings, abound in our newspapers, magazines, on the radio and on the internet. Seminars, forums, courses, self-help and support groups are readily available – and world cinema has made up for lost time. For the last few years, I have been tracking American, Canadian, British, European and Israeli films that feature people who are suffering from some form of dementia, especially Alzheimer’s. These movies show the impact of their condition on caregivers, whether they be spouses, sons, daughters or friends.

photo - Jim Broadbent with Judi Dench in Iris
Jim Broadbent with Judi Dench in Iris. (photo from Everett Collection / Rex Features)

The British film Iris (2001) reveals the true story of the lifelong romance between novelist Iris Murdoch and her husband John Bayley, and her gradual deterioration due to Alzheimer’s disease.

The Canadian movie Away from Her (2006) follows a loving couple; she acknowledges her condition and moves into a seniors residence, and the husband must cope with his wife’s new romantic attachment to a male resident of the facility. Still Mine (2012), also a Canadian movie, is an old-age love story told with minimal sentimentality and spiky integrity. She has Alzheimer’s, he wants to build her a smaller house, with his own hands; complications ensue.

Amour (2012), a French film, gives us an unflinching vision of dementia caused by stroke and the complex relationship between the members of the octogenarian couple. It was widely acclaimed and nominated for several Academy Awards.

The British comedy Quartet (2013) brings together four superb actors in a magnificent seniors residence for musicians. Each member of the ensemble has his or her own impairments and talents. Somehow they cope and produce beautiful music together.

The American movie Still Alice (2014) shocked and educated every viewer who stayed until the end. We watch as early-onset dementia gradually overcomes the heroine’s intelligence and independence. Her strategies and courage educate and enrich our lives as she struggles with her loss of memory and mental abilities. Julianne Moore won an Academy Award for her performance.

In the American documentary Glen Campbell … I’ll be Me (2015), the legendary singer agrees to a final North American tour knowing that he has Alzheimer’s. The family supports, encourages and devises ways in which he can continue to perform despite the debilitating effects of the disease. A superb real-life drama that makes one appreciate how drastically the disease affects everyone close to the struggling singer.

photo - Christopher Plummer in Remember
Christopher Plummer in Remember. (photo from Serendipity Point Films)

In the Canadian movie Remember (2015), two residents of a seniors home seek revenge against the Nazi killer of their families in the Holocaust. With Alzheimer’s robbing him of his capacity to remember, one old man goes forth, with detailed instructions in hand, to find and kill his tormentor. He struggles with his inadequacies and perseveres.

Then there is the Israeli drama The Farewell Party (2015), which deals with the topic of assisted suicide and dementia. Notwithstanding the topic, it is a sweet, funny and sad tale that teaches us compassion and acceptance.

I recommend all of these movies to you, no matter at what stage of life you find yourself. But you might say, why should I watch these movies, why should I care? I am not there yet. It is not my issue, I don’t need to know about all this. It is too depressing. I defy readers to tell me they do not know someone who is suffering or has suffered from dementia. One in nine people over the age of 65 will develop some form of dementia. We must acquire knowledge of the disease, we must become familiar with the signs and symptoms, we must acquaint ourselves with the various paths that dementia takes.

How can we understand, empathize and assist these people, our grandparents, our parents, our friends, in their journey? As ethical human beings, it is our obligation and privilege to make the disease and those who suffer from it an integral part of our society. Watching these movies will provide you with the tools and strategies to be informed, to be helpful and to be accepting of this condition. After all, you or I may receive the diagnosis of dementia tomorrow.

Dolores Luber is a retired psychotherapist and psychology teacher living in Vancouver. She writes regular columns for Senior Line, blogs for Yossilinks and writes movie reviews for Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library. This article was originally published on yossilinks.com.