SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

 Tell us about the mobster stories in your mishpacha.

With a packed schedule of over 50 classic and contemporary Jewish films from across the globe, the 30th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival offers a lot to choose from. One of the most talked about programs this season is Tough Guys: Images of Jewish Gangsters in Film, a special Anniversary retrospective on the elusive, but culturally-important Jewish gangster film.

Sure, people are talking about the films themselves, and about the complex issues they explore. But lately we've also been hearing conversations of a more personal nature. It seems that many of you have family tales about encounters with real live Jewish gangsters. You’d be surprised how common these stories are -- Jewish gangsters were, in many ways, just part of immigrant life in urban America in the 1930s and 1940s. In fact, our own Tough Guys guest curator Nancy K. Fishman became interested in programming Jewish gangster films thanks to her grandparents’ memorable run-in with a Jewish gangster:

“My grandparents, Abe and Frederica Fishman, received a funeral wreath from New York gangster Dopey Benny Fein (who earned his nickname because of a thyroid condition that lead to his having bulging eyes) because they didn’t want to pay him protection money,” said Fishman. “For years, I thought Dopey Benny Fein’s name had been made up by my family, until I started reading about Jewish gangsters and found out he was the real deal.”

Do a little digging into your family stories, and you too might uncover a Jewish gangster or someone who paid off a Jewish gangster. Do you have a gangster spiel in your family tree? A mobster story in your mishpacha? We want to hear your about it, and we know we're not the only ones! Consider sharing your own family's gangster tales with the rest of the audience. It’s easy to do, and there are several ways to participate:

A. Sign in and add your own Jewish gangster tale in the comment chain below.

B. Add your testimonial to our Facebook page.

C. Keep it short-and-sweet with a tweet. Tell us a shorthand version of your story on Twitter using the hashtag #gangstersinmytree. We'll track the tweets and add them to our website.

D. Email your story, and photos if you have them, to us at jewishfilm@sfjff.org, and we will post them for you.

We look forward to hearing about the gangsters in your tree, and stay tuned for more details about this collection of family histories about, well, the "family."

 This June, SFJFF brings you an animated short by Raaya Karas.  Some Space for Tomorrow is a heart-rendering Holocaust story that screened at SFJFF in 2006.  

What inspired you to make this film?

It was during my last year in the Academy of Art & Design when my grandmother started sorting out her old papers and letters, and came across this letter she wrote years before, and kept with her since. As she read it to me, it seemed as if she was re-living the emotions she felt at the time.

I think what I found most heart-wrenching was the naive belief that motivated her when she wrote this letter. Unaware of what today is common knowledge – at the time she truly thought her Fiance was alive somewhere, and has just been relocated, as the Nazis claimed.

I tried to capture that raw emotion of painful longing verging on despair, but still grasping at hope. It was the attempt to hold on to normality and routine when everything around you is in turmoil that appealed to me the most.

This April, SFJFF brings you another animated short from director Nick Fox-Gieg.  The Option of War adapts an early Kafka story, and screened as part of SFJFF's Jewtoons series in 2009.  Nick spoke to SFJFF about the film, its inspiration, and some of the challenges he had making it.

What inspired you to make this film?

This was my graduate thesis at Cal Arts. I was familiar with the Kafka story it's based on, and I was vividly reminded of it when driving through Mexico's Oaxaca State at night in 2002.  I'd already started work on it when the Iraq War began, and that couldn't help but strongly influence the direction it took from there.

Israeli artist and director Lilach Sarid is the creative force behind My Memories Are Entwined With You, an animated short that delves into the complex emotions that typify unrequited love. SFJFF offers this short online for free for the entire month of February, just in time for Valentine's Day. To watch it online now, click here.

What inspired you to make this film?

Nostalgia; Old diaries and letters I wrote as a child and photos of my older sister and me: On holidays, at school, on field trips with the youth movement, riding our bicycles in the moshav, sitting in the bomb shelter during the gulf war, celebrating our Bat-Mitzvahs, etc.

Backseat Bingo, SFJFF's online short for January 2010, is a candid animated exploration of the romantic lives of single Jewish seniors. The seniors interviewed in Backseat Bingo are not shy, and thank goodness, neither is director Liz Blazer. Liz spoke with SFJFF recently about her friendships with the film's interviewees and the lessons they taught her about love, romance, and how to stay young at heart while growing older.

What inspired you to make this film?

My grandfather, at eighty-two years old, fell in love. This happened after his wife of sixty years passed away, and he was in a deep, doleful depression. Then he met Ruth. She moved into his apartment complex and my grandfather was instantly transformed. They had a youthful, silly, puppy love. Hairs grew out of the top of his head for the first time in half a century. My grandfather giggled, danced and wrote love letters. His senior citizen love affair with Ruth taught me that love, sex and romance are essential at any age. This film was inspired by Sid and Ruth and the idea that it’s never too late to fall in love.

I chose to make an animated documentary because I wanted to remove the audience from the preconceptions they might have about senior citizens and aging. I wanted to show these folks in the most wise, vital and compassionate way that I could - literally animated. The 80 to 90 year olds that I've seen on TV and in the movies are portrayed as sickly or mentally impaired - I created sweet animated caricatures so as to allow the audience to focus on what the characters are actually saying about companionship and the universality of romantic longing, and judge them based only on that.

What was your greatest challenge during the filmmaking process?

The biggest challenge in making Backseat Bingo was finding and befriending a group of seniors who were generous enough to share their stories with me, and willing to talk about sex.  I asked around for months searching for a group of passionate vital seniors who were willing to talk about sex. I finally found one, Robert a 93 year old composer who, after getting to know each other introduced to me his clique of fabulous friends. The group I interviewed were all artists (musicians, writers and one sculptor) and were all part of a Walt Whitman literary club. They were excited about being interviewed and were quite candid - knowing the final film would be animated.   I was fortunate to have met the cast of Backseat Bingo, and I cherish their friendship.

If you haven’t yet seen our online short film Jai (SFJFF 2005), by Ariel Zylbersztejn, you should check it out here  – and you don’t need to take our word for it. In the less than two months it’s been available to watch online at SFJFF.ORG, Jai (or “Life,” as the title translates) has been viewed more than 350,000 times, has garnered almost 200 comments and received nearly 400 five-star ratings. The film is not the first project for which Mexico-based director Ariel Zylbersztejn has received acclaim. Still under 30, Zylbersztejn has already graced the pages of The New York Times and the Economist, and he’s now transforming the way Mexico’s citizens encounter film.

After recognizing that in addition to lacking the most basic of life’s necessities, Mexico’s poorest citizens didn’t have money for ever-increasingly priced movie tickets, Zylbersztejn decided to bring cinema to the masses, completely for free. In 2004, he launched Cinepop -- an organization designed to bring family movies to the public via giant inflatable screens. The project is funded via sponsorships that Zylbersztejn sells to corporate backers and social welfare agencies who then plug not only products but public service messages to a captive audience of hundreds or thousands as they watch the movie.

If you haven't yet heard of Producer/Director Sarah Lefton, it's high time we introduce you. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Lefton is the creator of G-dcast, an online cartoon series that tells the parsha, or Torah story of the week. The new episode G-dcast Spins Chanukah! is SFJFF's online short for December, available to watch through December 31, 2009 at SFJFF.ORG. Lefton spoke with us recently about the true meaning of Hanukkah, her love for the series Glee, and why she insists that Jarred gefilte fish is for suckers.

What inspired you to make this short film?

G-dcast is dedicated to raising basic Jewish literacy, and getting people talking about Jewish stories.

Most people don’t know much about why we celebrate Chanukah, but it’s a great story. There are lots of fun Chanukah videos flying around this time of year, but most of them are pretty heavy on fun…and light on content. We wanted to make something that got beyond latkes, candles and presents.By creating this cartoon, we hoped to answer some questions, while also making something fun that you’d be proud to show your friends, your kids or your Sunday school class.

What was your greatest challenge during the filmmaking process?

Trying to talk about Chanukah in a kid-friendly way means avoiding words like “Hellenizers” or “Seleucid Empire.” This is a holiday based in some (relatively) obscure history and it’s tough trying to get the story across without delving into some pretty serious topics. We spent a lot of time working on the script. Fortunately, writer Matthue Roth is brilliant at communicating with young adult audiences and grown-ups at the same time!

In our November online short of the month, Jai by Ariel Zylbersztein, a curious young Mexican girl asks her grandmother about her tattoo (the six digit tattoo given to Jews in concentration camps by the Nazis) and the grandmother responds with an interesting, somewhat uplifting tale. These days, an increasing number of Jews are beginning to look more favorably upon body art. Until recently, many Jews took the scripture of Leviticus very much to heart: “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor imprint any marks upon you: I am the LORD.” It was said that Jews who violated this law would not be buried in Jewish cemeteries. However, with an increasing number of Jews finding new ways to express their Jewish identity, it’s no secret that this taboo on body art is beginning to break down.

In a recent CNN piece on ‘the New Jews’ Jessica Ravitz quotes a Rabbi and Talmud scholar on his perception of tattoos in stating “he knows of ‘no Jewish legal source that would prohibit the burial of a Jew who violated that law.’” Unlike their parents or grandparents, Jews of Generation X and Y (whom Ravitz dubs “New Jews”) are much more removed from former pillars of Jewish Identity, such as the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. Instead, twenty-first century Jews have found faith and shaped their Jewish identities through music, theater, unconventional Torah study and body art. A 2008 New York Times article explored how some Jews are going the extra mile by inking themselves with overtly Jewish symbols, like the Star of David. But the verdict is still out on whether or not tattooing is kosher with contemporary Jews and there are obviously dissenting views amongst rabbis, scholars and everyday folk.

As part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's New Media Initiative, SFJFF offers a new short film to be viewed in entirety every month at SFJFF.ORG. This October 2009, our short of the month is Avi Ofer's Get the Picture, a delightful Israeli animation about a young girl who sees the world through fresh eyes thanks to a chance discovery. Ofer recently chatted with SFJFF about his filmmaking process, the challenges of animation, and why the best films still focus on the basics: telling a good, human story.

 What inspired you to make this film?

I had a long break in doing personal material in animation, and one of my greatest experiences during the past couple of years was in photography.  Animation and illustration was for me a very lonely and private process, just me and the paper\computer, and photography made me go and face reality. It was a difficult and important experience for me. I wanted to make a new personal film in which I could be more sensitive to the main character and every move and action reaction of it -- different from the symbolic characters in SANDBOX (SFJFF 2009) and less detached from my character. As usual, I don’t write a story or a script. The image I had in my head was the very long zoom lense scaring the duck in the lake. I had that before the actual concept of "capturing' the fish in the camera.

As part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival's New Media Initiative, SFJFF offers a new short film to be viewed in entirety every month at sfjff.org. This September 2009, our short of the month is My Amulet (SFJFF 2009), a poetic take on Anglo-Jewish Ashkenazi identity set in the London suburbs of the '60s and '70s. The film's director Leah Thorn recently spoke with SFJFF about the filmmaking process, including what it was like to work with her father's home movie footage and how she met the film's editor in a high security prison.

What inspired you to make this film?

I am a spoken word poet, performing my work at literary events and in prisons, schools and museums and I wanted to find new ways of reaching audiences. I had the idea for My Amulet and in the beshert way these things happen, a funder (the Pears Foundation) immediately appeared. Making the film involved melding existing poetry and visual material. I took an extract from an earlier performance piece, kin’a’hora, which explores my personal take on aspects of Anglo-Jewish Ashkenazi identity and assimilation and I gathered family cine film from the 1960’s and 70’s.

It was exciting working alongside filmmakers. First, I worked with Ruth Novaczek, a Jewish woman experimental filmmaker and then with Ben Hole, an editor whose work I like. I met Ben in HMP Bronzefield (a high security women’s prison, where I am writer-in-residence), when we collaborated on a video for UK women’s prisons. It was great to see how a non-Jewish editor was able to capture the ruach of my material and to enhance it.