film – Jewish Independent

Envying South African Jews

During the Goldene Medina exhibit this past summer, the documentary Leah, Teddy and the Mandolin was screened. It will be shown again on Dec. 8 at Congregation Beth Israel. (photo from Steve Rom)

I have a bad case of South African Jewish envy. This condition developed when I moved to Vancouver from the North End of Winnipeg. I can’t remember meeting even one South African Jew while growing up in the Prairies – the majority of Jews in my hometown were from Eastern Europe. However, I met oodles of South African Jews when I moved here in the early 1990s and I was impressed by their knowledge of Judaism and their commitment to Jewish life. There seemed to be something unique about their community and it seemed exotic compared to Winnipeg’s. Many of them became my good friends, perhaps because, as a Litvak (my last name literally means a Jew from Lithuania), I share a common ancestry with my South African co-religionists, who predominately hail from Lithuania.

When I first moved here, my South African friend Geoff Sachs, z”l, two Montrealers and I organized Tschayniks, an evening of Jewish performing arts at the Jewish Community Centre of Greater Vancouver. It was at the JCC that I met another South African friend, Steve Rom, who was working there at the time, and helped us set up our events. About a month ago, Steve brought a fascinating exhibit to Congregation Beth Israel. Prior to being mounted in Vancouver, the exhibit, Goldene Medina, a celebration of 175 years of Jewish life in South Africa, was displayed in South Africa, Israel and Australia. Thanks to Steve, Jews in Vancouver got a taste of South African Jewish life, as well.

A unique feature of the exhibit was that nobody was named or personally identified on any of the displays. This approach helped tell the story of all South African Jews, and made the exhibit simultaneously particular and universal.

Stories were depicted on a series of panels, and traced the South African Jewish community from its origins in 1841 – when Jews first settled in South Africa – to the present. On one of the panels, I recognized the son and daughter in-law of Cecil Hershler, who has South African roots and is well known in the Vancouver Jewish community as a storyteller. His son married a woman from Zimbabwe and the wedding in Vancouver, which I attended, was a joyous blend of South African and Zimbabwean cultures. Seeing the panel brought back memories of that happy occasion and gave me an unexpected personal connection to the exhibit (other than identifying with my Lithuanian landsmen).

Other panels depicted various aspects of Jewish life in South Africa. While I was fascinated by the differences between the South African Jewish community and my experience growing up in Winnipeg, the exhibit was really a microcosm of Jewish life in the Diaspora. For example, the panel on Muizenberg depicted the resort town located near Cape Town, where throngs of South African Jews flocked to during the summer. The photos of crowded beaches told a thousand stories. However, that panel also reminded me of the stories that my dad, z”l, told me about taking the train to Winnipeg Beach in the summer with other Jews from the city to escape the summer heat. Like at Muizenberg, there was a synagogue at Winnipeg Beach. I am sure that Jews from New York have similar stories of escaping the city heat by going to the Catskills. In addition, the Jews of America, like the Jews of South Africa, referred to their new home as “the Goldene Medina.” Ultimately, all three places – Canada, the United States and South Africa – represented a new start for Jews fleeing persecution in Eastern Europe.

The Goldene Medina exhibit gave me an opportunity to learn about Jews from the land of my ancestors in Lithuania, who were able to reinvent themselves on the African continent and create a thriving Jewish community, which, at one point, reached 120,000. This resiliency is a characteristic of Jews and Jewish communities all over the world. And this resilience was evident in the film Leah, Teddy and the Mandolin: Cape Town Embraces Yiddish Song, which screened at Beth Israel during the exhibit – and will be shown again at the synagogue on Dec. 8.

Using 10 years of archival footage, Leah, Teddy and the Mandolin showcases the Annual Leah Todres Yiddish Song Festival, which was held in Cape Town. The documentary features stirring renditions of classic Yiddish songs like “Romania Romania” and “Mayn Shtetele Belz,” as well as two original songs written for the festival by Hal Shaper, a renowned songwriter, which are sung with passion by talented South African Jews of all ages. The songs featured in the film evoke a yearning for a Jewish world that no longer exists in Lithuania and Eastern Europe and highlight the power of the Yiddish language and music.

While the South African Jewish community has shrunk since its heyday in the 1970s to approximately 50,000, it is still an important Diaspora community. In addition, South African Jews make important contributions to every Jewish community they move to, and bring their unique culture to their new homes.

Seeing the exhibit and the documentary cemented the kinship I feel with my South African brothers and sisters. A few of my South African friends even dubbed me an honourary South African Jew at the exhibit, an honour I gladly accepted. One day, I hope to make a pilgrimage to the land of the Litvaks to experience South African Jewish life firsthand. Until then, I will have to continue to learn about South Africa vicariously.

The Dec. 8 screening of Leah, Teddy and the Mandolin at Beth Israel takes place at 4 p.m. Admission is a suggested donation of $10. For more information, visit leahteddyandthemandolin.com.

David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com.

Stand! opens on Nov. 29

Marshall Williams as Stefan Sokolowski and Laura Slade Wiggins as Rebecca Almazoff fall in love in the movie musical Stand! (still from the movie)

The film Stand! comes out in Cineplex theatres across Canada on Nov. 29. Locally, it will play at SilverCity Riverport Cinemas in Richmond. The story of how the independent film got to the big screen is as interesting as the movie itself. And both it, and the musical on which it is based, started with a simple conversation.

The idea for the musical Strike! came over a deli sandwich in 2002. Then-Winnipeg Free Press editor Nicholas Hirst suggested to Winnipeg composer, producer and writer Danny Schur that there might be some musical-worthy drama found in the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Schur – who already had two full-scale musicals on his CV – followed up, coming across a photo of Ukrainian-Canadian Mike Sokolowski, who was killed by one of the “special police” – the actual police force, who sympathized with the strikers, had been fired and replaced with thugs – in what is now known as “Bloody Saturday,” June 21, 1919. Being Ukrainian-Canadian himself, Schur was hooked.

He wrote 18 songs and the script for the musical Strike! by 2003. A workshop of it at the University of Winnipeg connected Schur to director Anne Hodges and writer Rick Chafe, who helped get the production ready for its première – first an abridged version, an outdoor show in 2004; then the full version in 2005. (Chafe is also co-writer of the film with Schur.)

“The idea for the movie first sprang from a conversation I had with Jeff Goldblum in 2005,” Schur told the Independent in an interview. “He was sitting beside me at the Winnipeg world première (he was in a relationship with our Winnipeg female star [Catherine Wreford], whom at that time had a Broadway career). After seeing the musical, he stated, ‘Big story, big ideas, it would make a great movie.’ And I thought, ‘If Jeff Goldblum says it will make a great movie, that must surely be the case.’ I naively believed it would take two or three years to come to fruition and it took 14. Shows what I knew!”

Those years would be filled with adapting the musical from stage to screen, raising the large amount of money needed to film a movie, casting the roles, finding a director, finding a production company, etc., etc.

The considerations in translating the stage production to film were legion, said Schur. “First, some songs had to go, because the average number of songs in a movie musical is eight; the stage show has 18. Some of the cuts were obvious – because some of the actors we cast were not singers. In all cases, it was a matter of what served the story best. What works on stage does not necessarily translate to screen. Rob [Adetuyi] was extremely helpful in this regard, having as much experience as he does with film.

“But the biggest change to screen was Rob’s doing: to make the film more diverse. Emma, the black maid, was a conscious change to reflect history better and have a more diverse film. So, too, was the case with the character of Gabriel [a Métis soldier who served in the war].”

When Adetuyi, the director of Stand! (whose mother is Jewish, as it happens), changed the maid character from being Irish to being a black woman who had fled racist violence in the United States, Schur wrote a new song, “Stand,” which became the title of the film.

Sokolowski is one of the main characters in both the musical and film. He and his son, Stefan, are struggling to earn enough money to bring the rest of their family to Canada from Ukraine. Among their neighbours are Jewish siblings Rebecca and Moishe Almazoff, the latter of whom is based on a real person. (Moishe Almazoff is the pen name for Solomon Pearl.)

Amid the harshness of life and their bleak future, Stefan and Rebecca fall in love. Schur told the JI that he based the interfaith romance on that of his aunt and uncle, “she the Christian, he the Jew.” Of course, the couple’s relationship isn’t welcomed by their families and respective communities. And, of course, the poor living and working conditions, the labour unrest, the threat of deportation and the violence are not conducive to love.

In a neat turn, the making of the film has led to changes in the musical.

“I always say, musicals are never written, they’re rewritten,” explained Schur. “So, where, before, the movie was substantially different from the stage musical, we have now edited the stage version to reflect the movie. So, now they’re pretty close. Having said that, the stage play has more songs.”

The music is certainly one of the highlights of the film. In this regard, and also another of the Jewish connections to the production, Schur noted, “Gail Asper is the hugest supporter of the movie, having invested in the stage show and the movie, and she convinced Montreal’s Sharon Azrieli to do the same. Sharon, who is an opera singer, sang the closing credit song, ‘Change,’ which I wrote for her.”

As for the feat of getting an independent movie a national release, not to mention deals for distribution in the United States and Japan, Schur said, “This is a truly indie release; in other words, there is no distributor involved. We went to Cineplex and said, ‘We have an audience. Please give us some screens.’ Where Cineplex could have given us a token, small number of screens, they provided screens from sea to shining sea, which is a testament to their belief in the film. I cannot say enough good things about the good people at Cineplex for giving us our chance to make a stand, especially in the midst of so busy a late fall season.”

Stand! showtimes and tickets are listed at cineplex.com/movie/stand.

“The movie is a unique opportunity to take the experience of the Jewish community in Canada circa 1919 and apply the lessons of the era to today, be those lessons for the community itself, or the broader community of immigrants,” said Schur. “In an era where discrimination is on the rise, the movie is a metaphor that teaches us that ‘love thy brother’ is the best way forward.”

Festival Judío in August

Brazil’s Mauro Perelmann takes part in the upcoming Festival Judío. (photo from mauroperelmann.com.br)

For eight days, Aug. 2-9, the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture will be transformed into a hub of Latin American culture as it hosts Festival Judío, a multifaceted celebration showcasing Jewish artistic work from Argentina to Mexico. The festival, revived after its original 2004-2006 run, is expected to be the largest of its kind in terms of scope anywhere in the world.

“There is so much material to choose from that there could easily be separate festivals for Latin American Jewish visual art, books, films and music,” said organizer David Skulski, who also spearheaded the previous festivals.

Jewish Connections

Among the highlights of this year’s event is a show featuring Mauro Perelmann, who fuses various Brazilian styles with Israeli and klezmer music.

“My aim is to stir emotions through my music. I want to be evocative and create an atmosphere. It is more important for me to get a reaction from people than to play what is written,” he told the Jewish Independent from his home in Rio de Janeiro.

The samba was invented in the same Rio neighbourhood that later became a Jewish enclave, and there have always been links between Jews and Brazilian music in the city, he said. “With some modification of the scales,” he added, “I am able to turn familiar Brazilian tunes into sounds that resemble klezmer.”

A known composer and choir conductor in Brazil, Perelmann is no stranger to Vancouver audiences, having performed here in 2015 and 2016. His Festival Judío appearance on Aug. 8, as part of a nine-piece musical ensemble, will be preceded by a samba dance lesson.

Buenos Aires-based bandoneonist Amijai Shalev will present the lecture Tango: The Jewish Connection. “Jewish musicians and songwriters were very involved in the creative process of tango,” he explained. “The style of the violín tanguero is that of a Jewish violin arriving in Rio de la Plata (Argentina and Uruguay).” His Aug. 5 discussion of the parallels between tango and klezmer will examine the habanera rhythm (heard in George Bizet’s opera Carmen) that is present in both tango and klezmer. He will also trace the Eastern European origins of the bandoneon, a concertina that is a fixture in tango music.

photo - Vancouver’s Andrea Fabiana Katz will perform several works by Jewish composers — Vancouver’s Andrea Fabiana Katz will perform several works by Jewish composers. *(photo from andreafabiana.ca)*

On Aug. 3, Argentine-Canadian mezzo-soprano Andrea Fabiana Katz’s performance will cover several works by Jewish composers. “People associate tango with earthiness, passion and emotion…. The texts are very, very rich and full of metaphor and deep emotions, mostly about love, especially old familiar love. The poetry is always wonderful,” said Katz, who lives in Metro Vancouver.

The evening will be a milonga, which can be taken to mean both a musical genre and a tango party. Prior to the concert will be a tango dance lesson, and Jewish foods from Latin America will be available.

Film screenings

Among the festival’s offerings are five films. An Unknown Country employs firsthand accounts in following the lives of Jews who escaped from Nazi Germany to Ecuador, and shows their contributions to the economic, artistic, scientific and social life of their adopted country. Director Eva Zelig will be on hand after the film, on Aug. 7, for a question-and-answer period.

Other films at the festival include Los Gauchos Judíos, based on an Alberto Gerchunoff novel portraying the thousands of Russian Jews who came as farmers to Argentina in the late 1880s and 1890s; and The Fire Within, a documentary chronicling the integration of Moroccan Jewish settlers with the indigenous women of rural Peru in the late 19th century.

Two dramas, the bittersweet comedy Nora’s Will (Mexico) and the slow-burning thriller The German Doctor (Argentina), complete the cinematic line-up.

Lectures and artists

The Song of Lilith, an Aug. 6 talk by visual artist, filmmaker and Jungian therapist Liliana Kleiner, explores the ancient myth of Lilith found in the Talmud and in kabbalah, its incarnations through the ages, and how this legend relates to the present day.

Additional events include a writers workshop led by young-adult author Silvana Goldemberg and a presentation about the reality of the situation in Venezuela, led by Jack Goihman, who was an agriculture engineer when he left his home country of Venezuela because of its political instability. Arriving in Vancouver in 2014, Goihman completed a master’s in business administration and now works as a project manager.

A visual art show and sale will exhibit works by local and internationally shown and collected artists, including Miriam Aroeste and Kleiner, as well as a mural by the late Arnold Belkin.

A book sale, primarily of selections from the University of New Mexico Press, includes Oy, Caramba! An Anthology of Jewish Stories from Latin America, edited by Ilan Stavans, and Yiddish South of the Border: An Anthology of Latin American Yiddish Writing, compiled by Alan Astro, with a introduction by Stavens.

“Festival Judío is a double celebration of Jewish culture and Latin American culture,” observed Shalev. “Both are expressions of the richness and diversity of humanity.”

For more information on the festival, visit facebook.com/festivaljudio.

Sam Margolis has written for the Globe and Mail, the National Post, UPI and MSNBC.

Masks, stories and dance

George and Tamara Frankel at Masks, Revelations and Selfhood, the spring forum of Jewish Seniors Alliance, in partnership with the Louis Brier Home and Hospital, which was held May 26 at the Peretz Centre. (photo from JSA)

Since August 2018, Louis Brier Home and Hospital residents have explored themes of personhood and creative expression, crafting masks, narratives and original dances with expressive arts therapist Calla Power and choreographer Lee Kwidzinski. The whole process was filmed by Jay Fox for a documentary.

Power, Kwidzinski and Fox, as well as Louis Brier resident Jennifer Young, who participated in the project, shared their experiences with guests at Masks, Revelations and Selfhood, the spring forum of Jewish Seniors Alliance, in partnership with the Louis Brier. The forum was held May 26 at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture.

The four presenters brought with them many of the masks that were made by the Louis Brier residents, which they placed on tables near the audience. Everyone could examine them up close and try them on. This allowed people to experience the changes one feels when masked, hidden from others.

JSA president Ken Levitt welcomed everyone and spoke about JSA’s motto, “Seniors Stronger Together,” noting that JSA’s free peer support programs – which require the financial support of the community to continue – exemplify the power of older adults assisting other older adults. He then introduced Power, who has been working with residents at the Louis Brier for about five years.

The Masks Project lasted seven months, culminating in a program that includes masks, stories, poems, drama and dance. In her summary of the history of masks, Power said the oldest masks, dating from the Neolithic period, were found near Jerusalem several years ago. She explained that masks are used in many cultures as part of religious and/or spiritual ceremonies. In a slide presentation, she showcased masks from different cultures, including African, Indian and local indigenous cultures. Frequently, she said, those wearing the masks would represent “the gods” and be a conduit for messages from above.

Ginger Lerner, Louis Brier recreation therapist, had approached Power about making masks for Purim, obtaining a donation from the estate of Frank and Rosie Nelson that facilitated the project. Power did some research on Purim and discovered that many of the characters were masked; for example, Esther, who masked her origins, and Vashti, who refused to be unmasked. As residents engaged with the project, they discussed such topics as what parts of ourselves do we keep hidden behind a mask.

Kwidzinski, who specializes in dance movement, has 30 years of experience working with older adults, mainly those with dementia and those who are in wheelchairs. She has a dance company in Mission, and the dancers worked with the mask makers to create movements related to the masks and the residents’ ideas. The dancers became the bodies of the mask makers, who chose the movements and the music. The mask makers came on stage with the dancers for the performance.

Young, one of the mask makers, expressed how moving the entire experience had been. She said the group became close, even though they hadn’t known each other well before.

Young said she had been reluctant about the dance aspect but felt that the dancers were extremely supportive and, at the end, she said she found the movements liberating, as if she were also dancing. She said she gained energy and willpower from the experience, and thanked Power, Kwidzinski and Fox for giving her the ability and opportunity to “get up and keep going.”

Fox has produced award-winning films, documentaries, music videos and public service announcements. He was involved in the Masks Project from the beginning. He felt that the journey was as important as the film and the art produced. The film was screened at the forum, and can be viewed at youtube.com/watch?v=YspYE6juiy0.

Gyda Chud, JSA first vice-president, led the question-and-answer session. Members of the audience expressed their appreciation for the information and the beauty of the project. It was suggested that advocacy was needed to have this type of project adopted by other care homes and adult day-care centres.

I wrapped up the afternoon event with a thank you to the presenters, which was followed by snacks provided by Gala Catering.

Shanie Levin is an executive board member of Jewish Seniors Alliance and on the editorial board of Senior Line magazine.

Dancers explore new territory

Magic & Remembering opens at Scotiabank Dance Centre on June 1, which is B.C. Access Awareness Day. (photo from All Bodies Dance Project)

The themes in this show range from home and belonging to our collective connection to self, city and architecture,” All Bodies Dance Project co-founder and facilitator Naomi Brand said about Magic & Remembering, a program of dances and films, featuring dancers with and without disabilities, that runs June 1-3 at Scotiabank Dance Centre.

“A lot of ABDP’s choreography highlights the relationship between different bodies moving in different ways,” said Brand, who is a member of the Jewish community. “We try and make work where our differences as dancers are celebrated and exploited for their choreographic potential. We’re always looking for new territory that challenges notions of the ‘typical’ dancer and the typical ways of making dance.”

A similar motivation sparked the idea for this show.

“Magic & Remembering was born out of the desires from artists in our company to lead their own choreographic processes, as well as an idea to explore new territory in dance filmmaking,” said Brand.

The program comprises three dances and three films. Most of the works are new for this production and created by longtime members of All Bodies Dance Project.

“ABDP works in a very organic way as a collective of artists who work through collaboration and improvisation to devise new choreography,” explained Brand. “Each of the pieces came about in a different way through a different creative process. My role has been to act as an ‘outside eye’ to support the choreographers, offer feedback and suggestions; sort of an editor to help clarify the pieces.”

Two of the three filmmakers are local, she said. Martin Borden – who is also a visual artist, woodcarver and educator, and has been documenting ABDP’s work for many years – collaborated with dancers/choreographers Rianne Svelnis and Harmanie Taylor on Sanctuary.

Gemma Crowe worked with Carolina Bergonzoni on Ho.Me. “Gemma is a dancer who has been working in video for a number of years,” said Brand. “As a dancer, she brings a keen understanding of how the camera moves almost as a partner in the dance.”

The third film is called Inclinations and it was created, said Brand, “by our friends and colleagues Danielle Peers (Edmonton) and Alice Sheppard (based in New York) and features a cast of four manual wheelchair users, including Harmanie Taylor from All Bodies Dance Project.”

Quoting from Sheppard’s website, Brand described the piece as one that “contrasts the playful connections when disability esthetics, disability community and a gorgeous ramp meet the institutional histories and discordant inclinations that can lurk just below the surface.”

“We are excited to include this beautiful film in our production,” said Brand, “as a way to connect and support disabled dance artists in our network from outside of Vancouver.”

The press material for the production notes that the films are “of dance works reimagined for the camera.” As to what that means, Brand explained that Sanctuary and Ho.Me were originally created as dances performed live: the former for the 2018 Vines Art Festival and the latter for last year’s Dancing on the Edge Festival.

“We’ve taken those dances,” she said, “and ‘reimagined’ them through the lens of the camera by using the same movement material, but reconfiguring it into a new piece. The camera allows for an intimacy and detailed insight into the dances that opens up whole new possibilities. For example, Carolina Bergonzoni’s Ho.Me, which consists of three personal solos, was shot in the dancers’ own apartments. We get to see these unique bodies and their movements in their private spaces, surrounded by objects of meaning to them.

“Sanctuary is shot in a busy urban location. The duet is accompanied by a soundscore created from the sounds of a typical Vancouver afternoon. Video allows us to take viewers into new worlds and to see the dancers and the dances in new ways.”

As for the dances in Magic & Remembering, Brand said they “use the dancers’ differences in unexpected and evocative ways. For example, Harmanie Taylor and Peggy Leung’s duet, Inflect, was born out of the simple choreographic question, what would happen if both seated and standing dancer used wheels? Peggy dances on a wooden wheelie board that facilitates all kinds of interesting and surprising ways of relating to Harmanie, who is a manual wheelchair user.

“Romham Gallacher’s trio, Re/integrate, delves into some deep and personal territory by exploring the process of bringing trauma-shattered pieces of oneself back together. The piece makes use of some intricate contact duet material between Adam Warren and Peggy Leung. Adam is a wheelchair user but dances the pieces without his chair.

“Cheyenne Seary’s Clove Hitch is a quintet based on themes of identity, individuality and belonging in a group,” she said. “The piece is set to music by Juno-nominated indigenous artist Cris Derksen.”

All Bodies Dance Project has many collaborators and partnerships that make its work possible, said Brand. “For this production,” she said, “we have partnered with the Roundhouse Community Art Centre and the Gathering Place, where we do most of our rehearsals, and are grateful to have received grant funding from the City of Vancouver.”

Magic & Remembering opens on B.C. Access Awareness Day, which is “a comprehensive campaign to raise awareness about disability, accessibility and inclusion,” said Brand.

In line with ABDP’s efforts to remove barriers, “all of the performances are scent-reduced with sliding scale ticket pricing – no one is turned away for lack of funds,” she said. “Our two performances on Monday, June 3, include ASL interpretation.”

For tickets ($10-$25) and more information, visit allbodiesdance.ca.

About the cover art – Passover 2019

Moses and Aaron lead the Israelites to the Red Sea in this still from Nina Paley’s feature-length animated film Seder-Masochism, which screened at the Vancouver International Film Festival last year and is available to view for free online at archive.org/details/sedermasochism. Being in the public domain means that all of Paley’s animation and images are free for anyone to use. Nonetheless, the Jewish Independent requested and received her blessing to run the images from the film that grace the cover of this issue and its Passover section.

According to sedermasochism.com, the film “loosely follows the Passover seder story, with events from the Book of Exodus retold by Moses, Aharon, the Angel of Death, Jesus and the director’s father. The film puts a twist on the traditional biblical story by including a female deity perspective – the Goddess – in a tragic struggle against the forces of patriarchy.”

The feature was “in the works since 2012, when Paley first animated a scene called This Land Is Mine, a parody about never-ending conflict in the Levant, which has been viewed over 10 million times on various online channels.” Paley has written and designed a companion book, The Seder-Masochism: A Haggadah and Anti-Haggadah, which can be purchased through Amazon.

Paley is also the creator of the animated musical feature film Sita Sings the Blues, which, her bio at palegraylabs.com notes, “has screened in over 150 film festivals and won over 35 international awards.” It continues: “Her adventures in our broken copyright system led her to join questioncopyright.org as artist-in-residence in 2008. Prior to becoming an animator, Nina was a syndicated cartoonist. A 2006 Guggenheim Fellow, she also produced a series of animated shorts about intellectual freedom called Minute Memes. Nina began quilting in 2011 as a way to do something real with her hands after years of pushing pixels.”

Readers can find out more about Paley at blog.ninapaley.com.

ראש ממשלת קנדה: אמשיך להתנגד לארגון הקורא להחרמת ישראל

(צילום: Pixabay)

ראש ממשלת קנדה, ג’סטין טרודו, הודיע כי ימשיך להתנגד לארגון הבינלאומי הקורא להחרמת ישראל – הדי.בי.אס. דבריו של טרודו נאמרו בשבוע שעבר במסגרת כנס בחירות פתוח לכל שהתקיים בעיר סנט קטרינס שבמחוז אונטריו. ראש הממשלה השיב לאחד מהשואלים שביקש לבדוק האם הוא מתכוון להתנצל על כך, שגינה בעבר את ארגון הדי.בי.אס. טרודו אמר בתגובה לשאלה: “כשיש ארגונים כמו הדי.בי.אס שמחפשים להציג דמוניזציה ודה-לגיטימציה למדינת ישראל, וכשיש סטודנטים שמפחדים להגיע לאוניברסיטאות ולמכללות בקנדה בגלל דתם, חייבים להכיר בכך שיש דברים שלא מקובלים כלל. אסור לאף אחד להפלות אם לגרום לאנשים להרגיש שלא בטוח בגלל הדת שלהם. וזה בדיוק מה שארגון הדי.בי.אס עושה. אנטישמיות הייתה קיימת ומוכרת בעבר. וגם היום המתקפות נגד העם היהודי מהוות אחוז גבוה בקרב פשעי השנאה בקנדה ובעולם כולו. עלינו להבין שחלק מהאנטישמיות כיום מנוהלת לא רק נגד יחידים, אלא גם נגד מדינת ישראל בכלל. עלינו להיזהר לכן שלא לתמוך באנטשימיות החדשה הזו – שמבקרת וקוראת לעשות חרם על ישראל”.

תסריט שעוסק בגזענות נגד יהודים עלה לגמר פסטיבל סרטי נעורים

שני אחים שעלו עם משפחתם מקנדה לישראל וגרים כיום באשקלון, זאת לאחר שהם ומשפחתם סבלו לטענתם מגל אנטישמיות. האחים החליטו לעשות על זה סרט. התסריט שהוא בעצם מתאר את סיפור חייהם המעניין, עלה לשלב גמר תחרות של פסטיבל סרטי נעורים ארצי בישראל. כעת הם ממתינים לתוצאות הגמר שיפורסמו קרוב לוודאי במהלך החודש הקרוב.

האחים חיים (בן השמונה עשרה) ומנחם (בן השבעה עשרה) לבית סמיערק, לומדים כיום במגמת תקשורת בישיבת צביה אשר באשקלון. התסריט שלהם משתתף בגמר התחרות הארצית של התסריט הטוב ביותר בפסטיבל סרטי נעורים, לזכרו של התלמיד מתן בד”ט שנפטר לפני שש עשרה שנים (שתיים עשרה שנים שנים לאחר שמוחו נפגע בצורה קשה מהלך תאונת צלילה באילת, כאשר היה זה בזמן טיול שנתי בכיתה י”ב). בגמר התחרות משתתפים בנוסף עוד ארבעה תסריטים נבחרים. זאת מתוך שבעים תסריטים שהגיעו לשלב הראשון בתחרות מכל רחבי הארץ.

התסריט אותו כתבו כאמור שני האחים עוסק בנושא גזענות כלפי יהודים בקנדה בכלל, וכלפי המשפחה שלהם בפרט. הגזענות לדבריהם היא זו שגרמה למשפחה לעזוב את קנדה ולעלות לישראל לפני כשנתיים.

האחים סמיערק נחשבים עדיין בישראל על תקן של עולים חדשים, לומדים כיום בישיבת צביה באשקלון. המשפחה כולה המונה שבע נפשות עלתה לישראל: שני ההורים, שני האחים ושלוש אחיות. הם בחרו לגור באשקלון.

בקנדה שני האחים למדו במגמת תקשורת ועתה הם ממשכים את לימודיהם באותה מגמה בישיבה באשקלון. אל הפרוייקט הקולנועי שלהם מצטרפים שני בוגרי מגמת התקשורת בישיבה (אביב סיאני ומאור מיכאלי) אשר יפיקו את סרט, עם יזכה במקום הראשון בתחרות. השופטים בגמר התחרות (בהם: נציגי עיריית רעננה, נציגי בנק מזרחי-טפחות ונציגי משרד החינוך) וכן גם נציגי המשפחות התרשמו מאוד מהתסריט והסיפור האישי של שני האחים.

חיים סמיערק אומר על הפרוייקט שלו ושל אחיו הצעיר מנחם: “אני חושב שזה תסריט ממש טוב. מדובר בסיפור האישי שלנו שחווינו בקנדה. חשוב לנו לספר זאת לכולם. נפלה בידינו ההזדמנות לעלות לגמר תחרות הסרטים. במידה ונזכה בתחרות וכך גם יתאפשר להקהל נרחב לצפות בסרט שלנו – תהיה זאת ממש גאווה בשבילנו”. במהלך החודש הקרוב יקבלו האחים תשובה אם התסריט שלהם זכה במקום הראשון בתחרות החשובה.

Liked Beauty, not Wall

Lili Tepperman is one of five kids featured in Beauty. (photo from NFB)

It’s fine to be who you are,” says Bex Mosch, who turned 9 years old last year, when Beauty was released. Since the age of 3, Bex – formerly Rebecca – says he has known that he is a boy. He and the other “gender-creative” kids interviewed in Christina Willings’ 23-minute documentary have been forced by circumstances to become more mature than most kids their age. And they have more nuanced views on what it means to be human than many adults.

Beauty has its local première during the Vancouver Queer Film Festival’s first short film program, called The Coast is Genderqueer, which takes place Aug. 17. In addition to Bex, Fox Kou Asano, Milo Santini-Kammer, Montreal Jewish community member Lili Tepperman and Tru Wilson are interviewed. Interwoven with the interviews, footage of the kids being kids and meeting their families briefly, parts of Beauty are animated. These illustrations depict some of the kids’ favourite interests and tie together some of their common experiences. None of the parents is interviewed.

“In a way, the concept of this film came to me in the early ’80s,” says Willings in an interview on the NFB media site. “I was thinking a lot about the deconstruction of gender at that time, as were many others. We examined it from every angle, but what’s new now is that it’s children who are leading the conversation, who are saying, ‘Hey! Something’s wrong here!’ Some compassionate, and I would say enlightened, parents are hearing them. The new conversation isn’t ideologically driven, it’s experiential, and there’s a profound purity about that. It’s a breakthrough that I have felt very moved and honoured to witness and, by 2012, I realized this shift was going to be the subject of my next film.”

All of the five interviewees have had to face serious challenges, from being laughed at to being bullied. And, of course, they have had to talk with their parents about how they see themselves, versus how their parents initially viewed them.

“Sometimes, it’s easy to think it would be less stressful just to fit in,” says Lili in the film, “but then I’m not really being myself, and I find that’s an important part of living life because, if everybody’s trying to be like everybody else … it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Beauty screens Aug. 17, 5 p.m., at SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. For tickets, visit queerfilmfestival.ca/film/the-coast-is-genderqueer.

* * *

image - David Hare’s Wall purports to have complexity it doesn’t — David Hare’s Wall purports to have complexity it doesn’t. *(image from NFB)*

Another NFB film being screened in Vancouver next month is Wall, which is based on British playwright David Hare’s 2009 monologue on the security fence/wall between Israel and the Palestinian territories. Wall is not the first extended exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for Sir David, who was knighted in 1998. Written in 1997, his Via Dolorosa monologue premièred in London in 1998.

The film Wall has been a long time in coming. According to the NFB media site, in 2010, NFB executive producer and producer David Christensen “had a three-hour drive ahead of him when he chanced upon a podcast of Wall.”

“‘Listening to David Hare’s take on this wall Israel had put up gripped me visually,’ recalls Christensen.

“Riveted by Hare’s reframing of the issue and struck by how he could visualize the piece as an animated film, Christensen immediately called his producing partner Bonnie Thompson, who had the same reaction he did upon listening to Hare’s piece.

“‘For many of us, the issues around the Middle East, Israel and Palestine are complex and polarizing,’ says Thompson. ‘We thought making an animated film was a way to better understand this wall.’”

Canadian filmmaker Cam Christiansen is the animator who brought the concept to life visually, using 3-D motion-capture footage and other “cutting-edge animation tools.”

Wall has been the official selection of six film festivals to date, so it has captured critics’ imaginations. However, most Jewish community members will find it hard to watch, as Hare pays lip-service to the complexity of the situation but never veers very far away from blaming Israel for pretty much everything. When he says, “words become flags. They announce which side you’re on,” anyone with a basic knowledge of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict only has to look at the title of this work to know on which sides he falls. But then he goes on for 80 minutes about it.

There are a few instances when Hare seems about to offer the Israeli side, or at least condemn Hamas, but then he retreats. When he is told about a Hamas torture tactic, he is at first repulsed but then suggests it’s a metaphor for how Palestinians must feel at the hands of Israel. When he sees a poster of Saddam Hussein in a Ramallah café, he wonders about the appropriateness of such a man as a hero but then concludes it’s OK because Israel put up the wall, after all. And, then there’s his exchange with a Palestinian who says that Britain is to blame for all the problems: “Of course it’s your fault. The British were running Palestine in the 1940s. When they ran away and left everything to the Israelis, they didn’t care what happened to everyone else. There was a life here – a Christian life, a Muslim life, a Jewish life – and that life was destroyed.”

This ridiculous statement – and so many others – is not only left unchallenged by Hare or any of the filmmakers, but gets nods or words of understanding. With Israeli novelist David Grossman as the predominant voice defending or explaining Israel’s motivations and actions in Wall, most Jewish movie-goers will know before seeing it just how limited are the views expressed in this film, no matter what complexity it proclaims to convey.

Wall screens four times between Aug. 17 and 21 at Vancity Theatre. For tickets, visit viff.org.

Improvisation on the edge

Martin Gotfrit co-created Real Time Composition Study, which is part of this year’s Dancing on the Edge. (photo by Paula Viitanen)

To celebrate its 30th year, this July’s Dancing on the Edge festival will feature more than 30 performances, including Real Time Composition Study by Rob Kitsos, Yves Candau and Jewish community member Martin Gotfrit.

“We are three artists with varying interests in dance, sound-making and music, etc., who are exploring creating abstract work spontaneously within the confines of a set space and time,” Gotfrit told the Independent in an email interview. “The work is entirely improvised but, since we’ve been rehearsing (i.e. meeting and exploring movement, sound and light) for 10 months, we have been building an awareness of each other in the space and of our collective efforts. We also work with large conceptual ideas, as well as simple structures, to make it all a little more coherent. The work is not intentionally narrative but words and themes can occasionally emerge.”

Gotfrit not only performs in Real Time, but is its composer. He has numerous recordings to his credit, and has received much recognition, via awards and grants, for his work. Among his affiliations, he is associate composer, Canadian Music Centre; founding member, Canadian Electronic Community; and member, Guild of Canadian Film Composers. He has served two terms as director of the School for the Contemporary Arts at Simon Fraser University and been associate dean and dean of SFU’s faculty of communication, art and technology.

“I’ve just retired after 37 years at SFU as a professor in music and administrator,” he said. “I’ve been performing for a very long time in a variety of ensembles and in many different contexts. As a composer, I’ve created music for film, as well as for new media, theatre and dance performances. I’ve also had the opportunity to move on stage occasionally in those contexts as well. If I had to summarize what I do, I’d say I’m an improviser who has worked in many different forms.”

Gotfrit is part of the Vancouver band Sulam (which means ladder in Hebrew), where he contributes his guitar, mandolin and vocal talents.

“I’m quite active in my synagogue (Or Shalom) and, for more than a decade, I’ve been a part of the band of the monthly Hebrew chanting event Chanting and Chocolate,” he said about his other community involvements. “I returned to be more actively involved in Jewish life as my kids approached bar mitzvah age. I found many like-minded souls at Or Shalom.”

Gotfrit met Kitsos when he started working at SFU, and Candau when he joined the school as a graduate student. About how and when Real Time Composition Study came into being, Gotifrit said, “Rob and I had worked together in the past and we share a love of improvisation and a similar esthetic. We both find Yves’ work very interesting and compatible with our interests. We three started meeting weekly in September of 2017. The work has evolved in many surprising ways since then. For example, when we began, I was sitting off stage playing the music live. As time went on, I began to move more into the centre of the movement space as Yves and Rob (a professional drummer himself) began to take on other roles as well.”

As to what he plans on doing now that he is retired, Gotfrit said, “In addition to playing a wide variety of music with a number of groups (and practising of course), I’m studying to be a pilates instructor. I’ve been a practitioner for almost 40 years. I’m currently interning at the Vancouver Pilates Centre.”

Real Time Composition Study is part of EDGE Seven, July 13, 7 p.m., and July 14, 9 p.m., at Firehall Arts Centre, as is Pathways, by Jewish community member Noam Gagnon (Vision Impure). Other community members involved in Dancing on the Edge this year include Amber Funk Barton (the response.), Gail Lotenberg (LINK Dance Foundation) and Vanessa Goodman (in MascallDance’s OW!). The festival runs July 5-14. For tickets and the full schedule, visit dancingontheedge.org.

Talmud as film study prep

Filmmaker Jake Pascoe (photo from POV28)

The study methods of Jewish school have served Jake Pascoe well in his study of film at the University of British Columbia. His works will be among those featured in the Persistence of Vision Film Festival 28 (POV28) April 28 and 29.

The festival showcases the work of fourth- and third-year students in the film production program at UBC Theatre and Film, which is what brought Pascoe – born and raised in Toronto – to Vancouver in 2014. Now in the final year of his bachelor of fine art in film production, Pascoe is involved in many of the 21 short films being screened at POV28. He directed Genesis, was the producer of Snoop! and first assistant director on three films, With Love From God, It’s a Boy! and How Long?, as well as being key grip on two others and gaffer on yet another. Pascoe said that, for a student to be involved in so many productions is “completely usual.”

“In fact,” he told the Independent, “I have some currently exhausted friends who have been in several more roles this year than I have. The program really emphasizes getting as much exposure to the different departments as possible, which makes the production season of the school year a lot of fun; you and your friends working several long days in a row and having to figure out how equipment works on the fly since – hey, you’re suddenly our sound mixer now!”

Pascoe’s bio notes that, in addition to “a background in directing theatre, he’s won fiction and stage play awards and has had stories published in magazines.”

“Before I was ever interested in filmmaking, I loved writing, so that stage of the process will always feel a little sacred to me,” he said. “This year, I got my first opportunity to direct a large and legitimate set with a big, scary camera and lots of equipment. Directing a movie like Genesis has been an opportunity that’s sort of eluded me, so I didn’t know what to expect coming up to the shoot. My favourite directors, like David Fincher or Wim Wenders, have been almost holy figures to me but I haven’t had the chance to take on that role with any of the resources remotely similar to the movies I grew up watching. Just feeling part of that tradition was pretty special.

“It also just gave me a creative buzz I hadn’t really ever experienced before. There was a moment I had with my actors getting ready before a big scene and I listened as they were getting into character, talking about their fears and emotions and I got so caught up with them. It was really surreal sharing a creative process with so many people since writing is so solitary. Watching and working with them along with my producer Ayden Ross and cinematographer Sam Barringer was really inspiring.”

Pascoe said he will be taking some summer courses to complete his minor in English literature and he aims to graduate this fall. As for his plans after that, he said, “Directing is such a fun and almost addictive experience that I feel like I need to get back in the chair sometime soon, but what’s nice about writing is that you don’t need any money or equipment to do it. I’ve been writing fiction for my whole life so, immediately following graduation, I’ll be working on getting some of my writing published.”

Pascoe said he attended a Jewish day school until Grade 11, “so it was a very large part of my life growing up. In terms of how it comes into play now – it’s funny, I was just giving a little spiel about this at my family’s seders this year – it struck me recently just how strangely effective Jewish school was in preparing me to study film.

“There’s something really talmudic in the analysis and criticism of cinema and the application thereof to any filmic creative pursuits I’ve had at UBC,” he said. “I remember very vividly in long Grade 7 classes being given an excerpt from the Torah and having to take the ‘story’ and methodically comb through it for all the moral quandaries it presents, all of its impacts on daily life it posits, and all the laws within its lessons to follow.

“In a very similar way, when you watch a movie, you’re really being handed a puzzle in the form of a story and are expected to totally squeeze everything out of it and methodically ask different kinds of theoretical questions.” He spoke of walking out of theatres “with the movie nerds in my program, who are just, if not more so, as trivial and hairsplitting as any of the ancient rabbinical commentators I read in middle school.”

POV28 screenings take place at UBC’s Frederic Wood Theatre, and there are morning matinées and evening programs. For tickets and the full schedule, visit povfilmfestival.org.