Jerusalem Jewish film fest to take place in December
The festival will open with Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, an adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel about a love affair between two young Jewish men in Italy in the 1980s.
By HANNAH BROWNARNIE HAMMER and Timothee Chalamet star in Luca Guadagnino’s ‘Call Me By Your Name.’(photo credit: Courtesy)
The 19th Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival will take place at the Jerusalem Cinematheque from December 16-21 and will feature the best of contemporary Jewish-themed films, documentaries, shorts and restored classics from Israel and all over the world.The festival will open with Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me By Your Name, an adaptation of Andre Aciman’s novel about a love affair between two young Jewish men in Italy in the 1980s, one a 17-yearold Italian boy (Timothée Chalamet), the other his father’s American research assistant (Armie Hammer). The film was written by James Ivory (A Room with a View, Howard’s End).Another highlight of the festival will be a screening of a digitally restored version of Avi Nesher’s 1984 classic drama Rage and Glory, about Lehi fighters in Jerusalem in the early 1940s, which stars Juliano Mer-Khamis, the Jewish/Arab Israeli actor/director who was murdered, apparently by Islamic extremists, in 2011. The restoration was carried out by the Israel Film Archive at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.The closing film will be Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, the story of Winston Churchill’s first month as British prime minister and his decision about whether to negotiate with Hitler, which stars Gary Oldman.The Schoumann Award for Jewish Cinema will be given in the International Competition. The films in this competition will include Emmanuel Finkiel’s Memoir of Pain, which is based on the life of French author Marguerite Duras during a period when her husband was in imprisoned by the Nazis; and Claus Räfle’s The Invisibles, about the handful of Jews who survived World War II hiding out in Berlin.The Great Jewish Minds section will feature movies about such figures as Ephraim Kishon, Coco Chanel, Billy Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Zac Posen and others.An exhibit called “Time of Light” will be dedicated to the memory and work of the great Israeli film archivist Ya’akov Gross.Django, a drama based on the fascinating story of the great jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt, who was of Roma descent, and how he survived World War II, will be shown in the Jewish Interest section.The artistic director of the festival is Daniella Tourgeman and the executive director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque is Dr. Noa Regev.For more information, go to the festival website at www.jer-cin.org.il.
