The 27th Annual Boston Jewish Film Festival announces the Audience Award Winner for Best Feature is Once in a Lifetime and Audience Award Winner for Best Documentary is Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa. What Doesn’t Kill You is the first place winner of our FRESHFLIX 5th Annual Short Film Competition.
Once in a Lifetime, directed by Marie-Castille Schaar, is the compelling story of a dedicated history teacher at an inner-city Paris high school who challenges her class to participate in a national competition on the theme of child victims of the Holocaust. As the students discover the dramatic lives of these victims, they expand their knowledge of the world and of themselves. Ahmed Dramé, screenwriter, actor, and student in the class on which the film is based, led several powerful discussions about the film and his own experience during the Festival. Schaar and Dramé were thrilled to hear of the award: “What a great honor for Ahmed and myself to receive this wonderful and meaningful award for our film,” said Schaar. “Our journey together to tell Ahmed’s story started almost three years ago and everyday we still share in some way, in France and now in America, the audience’s positive response and feedback to the film. They make us proud every time. Thank you to the Boston Jewish Film Festival – we couldn’t be prouder.”
Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa, directed by Abby Ginzberg, is the documentary of South African activist Albie Sachs who has fought for racial equality since he was a teenager, and became a prime target for the apartheid regime: he was imprisoned in solitary confinement and was car-bombed in Mozambique. This film captures Sachs’ incredible dedication to the fight for justice and his role in transforming South Africa. A profound and moving discussion followed the screening, which included Director Abby Ginzberg, Massachusetts Supreme Court Justice Margaret Marshall, and Groton School Headmaster Temba Maqubela. The conversation was moderated by Adam Strom, Director of Scholarship Innovation at Facing History and Ourselves.
Our FRESHFLIX 5th Annual Short Film Competition showcased six strong and entertaining contenders selected by our young adult jury; the audience voted for the winners via text. The $1,500 First Prize went to What Doesn’t Kill You, directed by Darya Zhuk. Day 40, directed by Sol Friedman, won second place and the $1,000 prize.
ADDITIONAL FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:
• Another audience favorite, Dough, left crowds laughing and pondering the variety of themes in this comedy/drama about an intergenerational and interfaith friendship. Jewish bakery owner, Nat (played by Jonathan Pryce), hires a Muslim young man named Ayyash as his new apprentice. Humor and drama ensue when Ayyash drops some marijuana into a batch of dough and bakery sales rise. The film is expected to open theatrically in March 2016.
• The powerful documentary East Jerusalem/West Jerusalem brought the house down with conversation and songs with singer/guitarist David Broza after the Mid-Fest screening. Broza was joined on stage by two students from Berklee College of Music - Noam Israeli, an Israeli-Jewish drumming student and Firas Zreik, a Palestian quanun student. The music continued at our post-film Passholder Party with an impromptu jam session with Broza, Israeli, and Zreik. The film captures Broza’s efforts to create dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians through music. Coexistence becomes palpable through soulful songs, deep personal conversation, and music workshops for children in a Palestinian refugee camp.
• Our 5th Annual FRESHFLIX Short Film Competition continues to draw a sell-out, young adult crowd in their 20’s and 30’s. The winning film is chosen via text and a post-screening party enables film lovers to mingle and toast a new wave of young filmmakers. Our popular FRESHFLIX program for 20’s to 30’s expanded this year to eight film programs in the BJFF, and included a thriller, a mystery, and a midnight screening of a horror film.
• Our People of the Book series highlighted six films that explore the role the written word has in Jewish life. A smash hit among these was Apples From the Desert, our Opening Night film. Based on the short story by Savyon Leibrecht, this film focuses on a young woman exploring life beyond her strict Orthodox home when she meets a young secular man.
• Audiences had a look into the world of cartoonists at The New Yorker in the documentary Very-Semi Serious. Our first ever Spotlight Screening drew a packed house and T he New Yorker cartoon editor Robert Mankoff was on hand for a Q&A and post-screening party. Cartoonist Chris Weyant was present for a second screening of the film.
• Oscar contender, Son of Saul, was one of our three Surprise Screenings. Our audience was deeply moved by this wrenching and powerful story that depicts the horror of 1944 Auschwitz
• The documentary Breakfast at Ina’s drew huge crowds as well. Ina Pinckney, known as the “Breakfast Queen,” tells her life story between greeting customers and running her own restaurant. She openly discusses her childhood in which she was partially paralyzed by polio, her interracial marriage that caused her Jewish parents to disown her, and being a business owner for 33 years. Filmgoers were thrilled to participate in a Q&A session with film subject Ina Pinckney and director Mercedes Kane.
The Boston Jewish Film Festival, a not-for-profit arts organization, celebrates the richness of the Jewish experience through film and media. Throughout the year, the Festival engages and inspires the community to explore the full spectrum of Jewish life and culture.
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Boston Jewish Film Festival Announces 2015 Audience Award Winners
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