The annual Harrisburg Jewish Film Festival opens this month for its 19th season, bringing cinema from across the globe into town.
The eight-day festival features movies from Israel, Poland, France, Ukraine, Austria, Canada and the United States. This wide variety of films is united in the recurring celebration of Jewish culture, something the festival organizers have emphasized from the start.
Founded in 1994 by Francine Feinerman and Lorri Bernstein, the festival has become a cultural slow burn. Organizers started by screening Holocaust documentaries, explained Ayelet Shanken, co-chair of the festival. “Not really artistic, not really entertaining, but educating.”
“The [original] idea was to bring artistic views and education to our community and the broader community” said Shanken, co-chair of the festival, recalling the purpose of the festival’s creation almost two decades ago. Its roots in historical movies have evolved into a showcase of wide-ranging motion pictures and events.
Last year’s festival attracted an audience 600 to 800, with a similarly strong showing expected this year.
“First and foremost, we want wonderful films,” said Julie Sherman, co-chair of the festival. “The films are of Jewish culture, Israeli culture, Jewish history, Israeli history”but are “accessible to anybody.These are films that are really successful in the mainstream.They have either won or been nominated for Academy Awards. They have won different awards at Berlin, Sundance, Toronto and Cannes film festivals.”
This year’s festival features guest speaker Judith Manassen-Ramon, producer of the Israeli documentary, “Dolphin Boy,” a story of a man’s amazing recovery from post-traumatic stress; a live drag show at Stallions Night Club following the screening of the acclaimed Israeli musical miniseries “Mary Lou: A Night of Dreams and Music”; and the Academy Award-nominated film, “Footnote,” among many other films.
Sherman and Shanken were also clear that controversial movies are part of the line-up to prompt dialogue, and they pointed to “A Bottle in the Gaza Sea” as a potential catalyst. The film, adapted from an epistolary novel, seeks to personalize the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict through an e-mail relationship started by a young French woman, newly immigrated to Jerusalem, with a 20-year-old Palestinian man. Her motivation was to find understanding after witnessing a suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv café.
Much less solemn is the opening film, “Hava Nagila (The Movie).”
“As Jewish people, you’re brought up with it. It’s funny, you know, you sing it right out of the womb,” laughed Sherman. The documentary is a romp through the history and meaning of the universally recognized song.
The festival will run from May 5 to 12. The opening screening of “Hava Nagila (The Movie)”will be held at the Jewish Community Center. All other screenings will be at the State Museum of Pennsylvania.
For more information, visit hbgjff.wordpress.com.
