The Tucson International Jewish Film Festival opens tonight with an epic telling of the notorious Vel' d'Hiv Roundup in which French police rounded up more than 13,000 Jews for the Nazis.
The festival closes 10 days later with a musical that's described as an Israeli take on "Glee."
In between is a varied selection of films that would likely not otherwise be screened in Tucson.
"We offer films that speak to universal themes but reflect a diversity of experiences," said Lynn Davis, director of arts and culture at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
Now in its 21st year, the festival continues to struggle to reach a wider audience. "People seem to think you have to be Jewish or a member of the JCC and neither are true," Davis said.
One of the highlights is "Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest," an animated short film that tells the true story of an 8-year-old Polish girl's miraculous escape from a concentration camp during the Holocaust.
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The girl, Pitt, went on to become a successful screen actress, particularly in British horror films.
Pitt narrated "Beyond the Forest" shortly before her death in 2010.
The film was designed by two-time Oscar nominee Bill Plympton - and hauntingly drawn by 10- year-old prodigy Perry Chen of San Diego.
"Together with Ingrid, Perry allows us to see the Holocaust through the eyes of children younger than Anne Frank was. It is among the very first films ever to use animation to treat the Holocaust - and surely the first ever by a child animator," said Jud Newborn, a Holocaust expert who co-produced and co-wrote the film. "It's got the impact of a poem."
Newborn will speak before Saturday's screening.
"It's a fascinating confluence of talent and circumstances that came together on this piece," Davis said.
The festival opens tonight with "La Rafle" ("The Round Up") at The Loft Cinema.
Like "Sarah's Key," a French-language film starring Kristin Scott Thomas that was also released last summer, "La Rafle" is centered on the roundup of Jews by French police in German-occupied Paris. "La Rafle," which stars Jean Reno and Mélanie Laurentas, is epic in scale.
Most of the films will be shown at the community center, a 400-seat venue that installed a new screen last year.
"It's made us one of the premier film venues in Tucson," Davis said.
The films are selected by a committee that seeks out work made by Jewish filmmakers or on Jewish topics.
Thursday
7 p.m. at The Loft Cinema: "La Rafle" ("The Round up")
• The story: A powerful and deeply moving depiction of actual events in July 1942, in which Vichy French police rounded up Parisian Jews and detained them under appalling conditions before transporting them to concentration camps.
(France, 2010, in French with subtitles, 121 minutes)
Friday
1:30 p.m.: "Eichmann's End"
• The story: Set in 1957 Buenos Aires. The daughter of a Holocaust survivor learns that a fellow student is the son of Adolph Eichmann, who has been living in Argentina. Sylvia and her father, along with German and Israeli agents, work to bring the Nazi to justice.
(Germany, 2010, German with subtitles, 90 minutes)
Saturday
7 p.m.: Double feature.
"My Father, Joe"
• The story: A family that escaped the Nazis in Paris arrives in Canada where the 10-year-old son discovers his father is not the hero he thought him to be.
(Canada, 2010, English, 9 minutes)
"Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness"
• The story: Using photographs, clips from Yiddish film and theater, and commentary, this film examines writer Sholom Aleichem's life and art and his impact on Jewish culture.
(USA, 2011, English, 94 minutes)
Sunday
12:45 p.m.: Triple feature.
"Beyond the Forest" with introduction by Jud Newborn, the film's co-producer and creative advisor.
• The story: This animated short tells the story of actress and child Holocaust survivor Ingrid Pitt's escape from the Nazi concentration camp, Stutthof. Pitt went on to enjoy a 40-year movie career and recorded the narration for this film in 2010, shortly before her death at age 73.
(USA, 2010, English, 6 minutes)
"Ingelore"
• The story: Ingelore Herz Honigstein was born deaf to Jewish parents in Germany in 1924. Through her eyes we witness the events that she experiences at the hands of the Nazis. She escapes to the United States, where she becomes a teacher. Directed by one of her sons, Frank Stiefel, "Ingelore" is a meditation on freedom, both emotional and physical.
(USA, 2009, English, 40 minutes)
"Strangers No More"
• The story: At the Bialik-Rogozin school in Tel Aviv, children from 48 countries and cultures are educated and loved. Many have escaped genocide, war and hunger. The film follows several students' struggle to acclimate to life in a new land.
Won the Oscar for best documentary short subject, 2011. (USA, 2010, Hebrew with subtitles, 40 minutes)
3:30 p.m.: "War Against the Weak"
• The story: Based on investigative journalist Edwin Black's research into how some American corporate philanthropies, including the Rockefeller Foundation, helped found and fund the Nazi eugenics of Hitler and Mengele, creating the modern movement of "human genetics."
(Mexico, 2008, English, 92 minutes)
7 p.m. "The Jazz Baroness"
• The story: Eccentric Baroness Pannonica ("Nica") Rothschild gave up family and position to love and live with pianist-composer, Thelonius Monk. Directed by Nica's great-niece Hannah Rothschild, the film reveals their time together in a post-WWII New York City that was buzzing with pre-civil-rights tension and the syncopation of bebop.
(UK, 2009, English, 82 minutes)
Tuesday
1:30 p.m.: "An Ordinary Execution"
• The story: In 1952, Josef Stalin became ill and paranoid and purged all of his Jewish doctors. Anna, a young Jewish physician, is unwillingly made his "secret" personal physician and is awed by the dictator's capacity for both charm and evil.
(France, 2010, French with subtitles, 100 minutes)
7 p.m.: "Little Rose"
• The story: In 1967 Soviet Poland, free thinking is discouraged. Israel has just dispatched Egypt and Syria, key Soviet allies, in the Six-Day-War and thousands of "Zionists" are being forced to leave the country. A government officer persuades his lover to spy on a Jewish intellectual and then pushes her into having an affair with the man.
(Poland, 2010, Polish with subtitles, 118 minutes)
Wednesday
1:30 p.m.: "The Matchmaker" ("Pa'am Ha'iti")
• The story: It is summer in Haifa, 1968, and 16-year-old Arik finds a summer job with a matchmaker who unites lonely souls while doing a bit of smuggling on the side. The characters he meets give him his first awareness of pain, longing and the depths of human love.
(Israel, 2010, Hebrew with subtitles, 112 minutes)
7 p.m.: "Naomi"
• The story: Ilan is a 58-year-old professor who adores his beautiful young wife, Naomi - but she also has a secret lover. This is a taut, dark Israeli love-triangle murder mystery with a catch.
(Israel/France, 2010, Hebrew with subtitles, 105 minutes)
Next Thursday
• 1:30 p.m.: "Habermann"
• The story: A multi-layered story about the German annexation of Sudeten Czechoslovakia in WWII. This film has no heroes - only villains, victims and people doing what they have to do, moral or immoral, to survive.
(Germany, 2010, German with subtitles, 104 minutes)
• 7 p.m.: Double feature
"Cohen on the Bridge"
• The story: A faithful, animated retelling of the 1976 rescue raid on Entebbe by Israeli commandos. The film's narrator, the first commando to enter the terminal where the hostages were held, shares an episode from his family's survival of WWII.
(France, Israel, UK, USA, 2009, English, 21 minutes)
"I Shall Remember"
• The story: It's 1942 and the war is raging in a small seaside town in occupied southern Russia. A 13-year-old boy is embarrassed that is father chooses to stay home from the front, unaware this downtrodden man is risking his life by hiding Jewish children from the Germans.
(Russia, 2010, Russian with subtitles, 97 minutes)
Friday, Jan. 20
• 1:30 p.m.:Triple feature
"The Tailor"
• The Story: Set in New York and shot in black and white, this film teases out the similarities in diversity, stitching a modern tale out of a tribute to the past.
(USA, 2011, Silent with titles, 6 minutes)
"Gefilte Fish"
• The story: A bride-to-be who must cook gefilte fish for her wedding guests can't bring herself to sacrifice the carp that is brought home to swim in the bathtub, awaiting its fate.
(Israel, 2008, Hebrew with subtitles, 10 minutes)
"Lenin in October"
• The story: Grisha is an immigrant whose dream is to open a Russian restaurant in Israel. Then his uncle - the last of the old hard-line Soviet Communists - dies and leaves him an inheritance and unusual last wishes.
(Israel, 2010, Hebrew with subtitles, 50 minutes)
Saturday, Jan. 21
7 p.m. "Mabul" ("The Flood")
• The story: Viewed through the eyes of a boy during the weeks before his bar mitzvah, "Mabul" reveals the strain that unemployment, addiction and infidelity can take on a family. Then his autistic older brother, kept for years in an institution, returns home right before the ceremony.
(Israel, 2011, Hebrew with subtitles, 100 minutes)
Fabulous Faygeleh LGBT Film Series
Sunday, Jan. 22, Grand Cinemas Crossroads.
1 p.m.: Double feature.
"We Were Here"
• The story: "We Were Here" looks back on the arrival of AIDS in San Francisco and reflects back on the impact of the disease and on the power of a community when it works together with compassion.
(USA, 2011, English, 90 minutes)
"Edie and Thea: A Very Long Engagement"
• The story: This lesbian couple shared their lives for 42 years before being permitted to legally marry - shortly before one of them dies. Their love and devotion, and the way they overcame societal, political and personal challenges, are an inspiration.
(USA, 2009, English, 61 minutes)
4 p.m.: "Mary Lou" ("Tamid Oto Cholom")
• The story: From director Eytan Fox comes the Israeli take on "Glee." Based on the songs of Israeli pop icon Svika Pick, it depicts a young gay man who discovers himself while looking for the mother who deserted him when he was 10.
(Israel, 2009, Hebrew with English subtitles, 150 minutes with intermission)
If you go
• What: Tucson International Jewish Film Festival, featuring films from all over the world.
• When: Today through Jan. 22.
• Where: Tonight's screening is at The Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway. Screenings Friday through Jan. 21 are at Tucson Jewish Community Center, 3800 E. River Road. Screenings on Jan. 22 are at Grand Cinemas Crossroads, 4811 E. Grant Road.
• Tickets: $8; $7 for TJCC members, students and seniors. Group discounts of 25 for $5 a piece ($125) in advance. Buy six tickets for $36. Festival pass for all films is $85. Buy online at TucsonJewishFilmFestival.org, at the TJCC or by calling 615-5432.
• Bonus: Free popcorn at every TJCC movie.
Source: Tucson International Jewish Film Festival
