A killer is loose in the woods in "Rabies," which has the dubious distinction of being Israel's first horror flick. It's also one of 70 titles that will be shown during 12th Atlanta Jewish Film Festival, a three-week screening extravaganza starting Wednesday.
All the other characters in "Rabies" are so busy offing each other that the slow-moving bad guy can barely keep pace. There's the quartet of mean-spirited hotties and hunks in tennis togs -- they're clearly dead meat from the moment they screech up in their SUV, lost, and run over a guy who seems to have lurched into the location from a zombie flick. Turns out, he's the brother of the hourglass-figured girl who appears to be the killer's first victim. Then there's the two inept cops, who break every law in the books, and the caretaker who really should take better care of himself.
Quarts of highly unrealistic blood spill in a popcorn film that could be subtitled "When Dumb (If Entertaining) Movies Happen to One Country's Smart Cinematic Tradition." Except ... this being an Israeli film, there's actual meaning behind the body count.
"We wanted to explore the violent places in every person," co-director Navot Papushado told Jerusalem Post critic Hannah Brown, as quoted in the festival's 92-page guide. "We can feel the violence in the air [in Israel], without any connection to Palestinians or wars. We are two nations, divided into left and right."
But let us pause from thoughts of schlock movie carnage and political carnage to ponder: A 70-title Jewish film festival? A 92-page schedule tracking more than 100 screenings?
Yes, Atlanta's biggest film festival and the second-largest Jewish film festival in the U.S. (after San Francisco's much older one) continues to grow. Who knew that there were even 70 Jewish-themed (OK, sometimes very vaguely Jewish-themed) movies produced each year?
"To me, that's always the most amazing part of curating this festival, that every year we find 400 to 500 new films that are on Jewish themes," said Kenny Blank, the AJFF's executive director. "The fact that there's that breadth of films out there every year to be reviewed and evaluated and curated is pretty awe-inspiring."
Sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, the festival takes as its mission to inspire bridge-building across cultural divides.
The AJFF drew a record 26,000 viewers last year, nearly a quarter non-Jewish. All were taking advantage of a relatively rare opportunity in Atlanta: to view a cross section of new, mostly international films. This year's slate will be drawn from 17 countries, including Israel and the U.S., of course, but also Bulgaria, France and Germany.
At the center are films focused on what Blank calls "the thought spectrum on Jewish life" -- such as the Holocaust, living in modern Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian troubles.
But, the fest's leader added, "We've really taken pains to reach out beyond the subject matter that you’d expect to see at a Jewish film festival ... [for] movies that just speak to universal storytelling. This is, in my view, first and foremost a great international and independent film festival that just happens to have films that are Jewish."
Issues covered in this year's slate, Blank points out, are as diverse as immigration, interracial marriage, labor unions, human rights, obesity, the Russian legal system and Rwandan genocide.
To present all that, the AJFF is adding two more days and going from 99 screenings to 117. It's also programming more days at its new north metro venue and returning east Cobb theater, United Artists North Point Market 8 and Georgia Theatre Company Merchants Walk, respectively, and adding an intown location, United Artists Tara Cinemas 4, to go along with Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Stadium 16. Lefont Sandy Springs returns as the festival's headquarters venue.
The expanded days and added cinema means the AJFF will be able to offer as many as four screenings scattered across the metro area of its most popular titles, many of which in previous years had fewer showings that sold out in mere days.
The opening-night feature, Wednesday at the Fox Theatre, will be the Austria-Luxembourg film "My Best Enemy," a World War II-set narrative about the scion of a family of Viennese art dealers who is double-crossed when his best friend becomes a Nazi. Emory University film professor and AJFF co-chairman Matthew Bernstein calls it "a topsy-turvy dramedy of impersonation and reversal of fortune, and one heck of a thrill ride."
Speaking of unexpected thrills, the AJFF moved its opening night last year from an 800-seat Regal Atlantic Station auditorium to the Fox, where the gala drew 3,000, suggesting that the appetite for Jewish films in Atlanta, like the lust for fake blood in "Rabies," can't be sated.
Other festival highlights:
- A track of five films addressing Jewish-Muslim relations includes "David," a feature that examines the similarities and differences between the faiths through the eyes of a lonely 11-year-old Brooklyn Muslim boy who is mistaken for a new yeshiva student and is befriended by the Jewish boys; and "Free Men," a drama telling the story of Muslim freedom fighters in the French resistance movement.
- "The Flood," an Israeli family-in-crisis drama in which the older autistic son returns home from an institution just before his little brother's bar mitzvah and with their parents on the brink of divorce.
- "Nicky's Family," a documentary that recounts the heroism of Sir Nicholas Winton, the "British Schindler" who saved the lives of 669 Czech and Slovak children during World War II. It's one in a loose grouping of films that focus on the "moral courage of righteous persons."
- "The Last Flight of Petr Ginz," an American-made documentary about a Czech child prodigy who perished at Auschwitz at age 16. Ginz wrote about, drew and painted voyages and prehistoric monsters -- and the monster that is war. The film animates the late teen's art, largely unknown until the Space Shuttle Columbia carried some, setting it to John Califra's soaring music.
- Tributes are paid to two film classics on the occasion of major anniversaries, "Sophie's Choice" (30th) and "Dirty Dancing" (25th). Ditto the black-and-white Yiddish-language musical "The Cantor's Son" (75th), one of 100 films restored by the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University since 1976.
- "Restoration," a drama nominated for 12 Ophirs (the Israeli Oscars), a psychological study about a stoic antique furniture store owner (Sasson Gabai, the celebrated Israeli actor who was born in Baghdad) trying to save his business after betrayals by his partner and his son.
- "Roth on Roth," a documentary about the "Portnoy's Complaint" author Philip Roth, championed by critics but denounced by some of his faith for being a "self-hating Jew."
- "Remembrance" a drama about the love between a German-Jewish concentration camp survivor separated for decades from the Polish resistance fighter who saved her life.
- "The Apple Pushers," a documentary, narrated by Edward Norton, about recent American immigrants working in the Green Cart movement, bringing healthy foods to low-income New York neighborhoods.
Event preview
Atlanta Jewish Film Festival
Feb. 8-29. Regular screening venues: United Artists Tara Cinemas 4 and Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station Stadium 16 (Atlanta), Lefont Sandy Springs, United Artists North Point Market 8 (Alpharetta), Georgia Theatre Company Merchants Walk (Marietta). General admission, $10; ages 65 and up, students with valid ID and ages 12 and under, $9; weekday matinees through 4 p.m., $8.
Opening night gala at Fox Theatre: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. General admission, $10. Food and wine reception, 5 p.m. Red Carpet VIP, $300 (includes reception, live auction, film). Young professionals, $150 (includes reception, auction, film and ticket to Young Professionals Night on Feb. 9 at Atlantic Station Stadium 16). 866-214-2072, www.ajff.org.
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