The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a compelling and deep slate of movies and an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert of scores from classic Jewish films.
The Symphony Hall concert on Jan. 4, including selections from "Schindler's List," "Driving Miss Daisy," "Yentl," "Life Is Beautiful" and more, kicks off the film showings Jan. 13-24. Richard Kaufman, longtime music coordinator at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, will conduct the concert, which will be accompanied by a montage of film images projected onto large overhead screens.
Forty one narrative films and documentaries and two programs of shorts will then unspool at Regal Cinemas Atlantic Station 16, Lefont Sandy Springs and Regal's Medlock Crossing Stadium 18.
Atlanta's largest film festival (attracting 17,000 last year), and the second largest Jewish film fest in the U.S., is announcing its schedule and putting tickets on sale today (at www.ajff.org ). Highlights include:
"Berlin '36," the opening night film, is a German drama about high jumper Gretel Bergmann, a gold medal contender who was removed from the German Olympic team by the Nazis because she was Jewish and replaced by a high jumper who was later revealed to be a man. Bergmann, 95, was in the news just last month when Germany restored her 1936 high jump record that had been stripped due to her religion. In this North American premiere, she is portrayed by Karoline Herfurth. Also showing Jan. 15-16.
"Breaking Upwards," the feature for the "Scene & Be Scene" Young Adults Night (Jan. 14), has been dubbed an "Annie Hall" for Gen Y. The romantic comedy explores a year in the lives of a twentysomething couple (co-writer Zoe Lister-Jones and director Daryl Wein) exploring alternatives to monogamy when their relationship goes south, set against a Manhattan backdrop. Also showing Jan. 15, 22.
"Eyes Wide Open" is a drama that explores the controversial theme of homosexuality in Jerusalem's Orthodox community. Zohar Strauss, who plays a married father who falls for a seductive younger man, won the best actor prize at this year's Jerusalem Film Festival. Jan. 17-18.
"Ajami," co-directed by Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, is an urban crime drama that tells the interwoven stories of Jews, Muslims and Christians living in an impoverished Jaffa neighborhood. Israel picked the film as its submission for Oscar best foreign film consideration. Jan. 16, 17, 24.
"Herskovits at the Heart of Blackness," shown on the Martin Luther King Jr. National Holiday (Jan. 18), considers the controversial legacy of Jewish anthropologist Melville J. Herskovits, a pioneer of African studies. It won the best documentary award at the 2009 Hollywood Black Film Festival.
"Mary and Max" is a darkly comic claymation tale of an unlikely pen pal relationship between two lonely hearts, an 8-year-old Australian girl and a morbidly obese middle-aged Jewish New Yorker with Asperger's syndrome. The 2009 Sundance Film Festival's opening night selection is "not for kids," warns Jewish film festival executive director Kenny Blank. "It's racy and bawdy." Jan. 17-18.
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