Yeshiva University will present “A Lens on Israel: A Society through its Cinema,” the Ring Family Film Festival, from Feb. 14 to 23. The four-part event will be supplemented by lectures, workshops, and open forums with leading Israeli actors, writers, producers, and directors. Capping the event is the Feb. 16 screening of “Footnote” — the Oscar-nominated Joseph Cedar film that won “Best Screenplay” at Cannes, and “Best Picture” at the Israeli Ophir Awards. It is among the five contenders for “Best Foreign Language Film” at this year’s Academy Awards. Following the screening, Cedar and actor Lior Ashkenazi will take questions from the audience.
The free festival opens on Feb. 14 with the screening of the internationally acclaimed drama, “Restoration.” The 2008 film “For My Father” will be shown on Feb. 15, and the festival concludes with “Three Mothers” on Feb. 23. Visit www.yu.edu/film-festival.
Was the Israeli kibbutz movement an idealistic social experiment that aimed to create a stronger, healthier, fairer Jewish world? Or was it a wasteful lefty fantasy that resulted in an oppressively conformist society in which everyone spied on his neighbor? According to “Inventing Our Life,” a documentary by Toby Perl Freilich, it depends on whom you ask, which may be another way of saying all of the above. Screening at the Quad Cinema on West 13th Street for the Yom Ha’atzmaut season, “Inventing Our Life” shares a lot of fascinating information about kibbutz life and the history of kibbutzim, but leaves a lot out, as well.
The kibbutz movement was an answer to a pressing economic problem in turn-of-the-20th-century Palestine: There were no jobs for young Jewish immigrants, so many of them turned around and went back home, or decided to try America.
The premise of “Hadirah” (“The Flat”) appears simple: An elderly grandmother has died and her apartment must be emptied of the relics of a lifetime.
As he filmed what was intended to create a record of his grandmother’s home and lifestyle, however, director and narrator Arnon Goldfinger began “to uncover…things that were a bit disquieting…, [that] did not cease to transform and surprise me.”
In the resulting documentary — which won Best Editing in a Documentary Feature at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival — the secrets revealed stimulate a convoluted journey into Goldfinger’s family’s history and the discovery of what he calls “a reality that is often chaotic and unexpected.”
The premise of “Hadirah” (“The Flat”) appears simple: An elderly grandmother has died and her apartment must be emptied of the relics of a lifetime.
As he filmed what was intended to create a record of his grandmother’s home and lifestyle, however, director and narrator Arnon Goldfinger began “to uncover…things that were a bit disquieting…, [that] did not cease to transform and surprise me.”
In the resulting documentary — which won Best Editing in a Documentary Feature at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival — the secrets revealed stimulate a convoluted journey into Goldfinger’s family’s history and the discovery of what he calls “a reality that is often chaotic and unexpected.”
Was the Israeli kibbutz movement an idealistic social experiment that aimed to create a stronger, healthier, fairer Jewish world? Or was it a wasteful lefty fantasy that resulted in an oppressively conformist society in which everyone spied on his neighbor? According to “Inventing Our Life,” a documentary by Toby Perl Freilich, it depends on whom you ask, which may be another way of saying all of the above. Screening at the Quad Cinema on West 13th Street for the Yom Ha’atzmaut season, “Inventing Our Life” shares a lot of fascinating information about kibbutz life and the history of kibbutzim, but leaves a lot out, as well.
The kibbutz movement was an answer to a pressing economic problem in turn-of-the-20th-century Palestine: There were no jobs for young Jewish immigrants, so many of them turned around and went back home, or decided to try America.
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