EVENT PREVIEW
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
Jan. 29-Feb. 20 at Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre (opening night only), Regal Cinemas North Point Market 8, Georgia Theatre Company Merchants Walk, Lefont Sandy Springs, United Artists Tara Cinemas 4, Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Stadium 18 and Woodruff Arts Center's Rich Auditorium (closing night only). Tickets go on sale Jan. 5. www.ajff.org.
Atlanta’s biggest film festival plans to get considerably bigger in 2014.
The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, running Jan. 29 through Feb. 20, will feature 152 screenings (28 more than last year) of 65 films from 20 countries.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has exclusive details of the expanded 14th annal AJFF on Saturday, with the full lineup expected to be posted Monday at www.ajff.org.
The festival is adding either screens, days or theater capacity at Georgia Theatre Company’s Merchants Walk, Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Stadium 18 and Regal Cinemas North Point Market 8, as well as adding a seventh screening venue (the Woodruff Arts Center’s Rich Auditorium).
The fest also will grow by a day, stretching 23 days, an extended run compared to typical film fests that wrap in a week or less.
All of those moves will add potential capacity of 5,500 seats to an event that drew a record of nearly 32,000 in 2013.
“Every year I feel that, wow, we’ve really sort of tapped this thing out,” Kenny Blank, executive director of the country’s second-biggest Jewish film festival (after San Francisco’s), said in an exclusive AJC interview. “Yet we continue to see, as we offer more and more, that audience demand rises to meet that.”
Blank knows that response isn’t just because of the Jewish subject matter of the films or the Jewish filmmakers behind them — that metro film lovers mainly are responding to the rich selection of international and independent cinema that might not otherwise play here. And he’s fine with that, given that the mission of the fest, launched in 2000 by the American Jewish Committee, is to break down cultural barriers.
Supplying evidence of that quality, the AJFF will present a half-dozen features submitted as official Oscar best foreign language film entries by their home countries for 2014: “Bethlehem” by Israel; “The German Doctor,” Argentina; “In the Shadow,” Czech Republic; “Omar,” Palestinian territories; “The Third Half,” Macedonia; and “Transit,” Philippines.
Other notable selections include:
- "Run Boy Run," commanding the prestige opening night slot, Jan. 29 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. German director Pepe Danquart's film dramatizes the true story of a 9-year-old boy who escapes the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Poland, into the woods, where he survives until World War II's end.
- "Jews and Muslims: Intimate Strangers," the North American premiere of a four-part, 208-minute French documentary, exploring 14 centuries of shared history between the faiths.
- A 25th anniversary screening of "Driving Miss Daisy," followed by a panel with many who worked on the Atlanta-filmed favorite. Other revivals: Sidney Lumet's "The Pawnbroker" (50th anniversary) and "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (40th).
- A trio of documentaries exploring Jewish comedy: "Mel Brooks: Make a Noise," "Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story" and "When Jews Were Funny."
- "Next Year Jerusalem," a documentary about eight Connecticut nursing home residents who embark on a final adventure to Israel. It's the closing night feature, Feb. 20 at Woodruff Arts Center. Director David Gaynes calls it an exploration of "the decision to choose life in spite of death."
- The Creative Loafing Art Party, Feb. 8 at the Westside Cultural Arts Center, celebrating iconic Jewish filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and the Coen brothers. A new twist this year aimed at 20- and 30-somethings, it's pitched as an "immersive" film-themed happening, with projections from the honorees' films, contemporary takes on classic movie poster art, photo booths, DJ, food and drink.
