EYES WIDE OPEN examines forbidden passion at Jewish Film Festival
Walter Reade Theater
165 West 65th St. between Broadway & Amsterdam Ave.
January 13-28, $11
212-721-6500
www.filmlinc.com
The nineteenth annual Jewish Film Festival at Lincoln Center consists of thirty-two films, nearly every one a New York or U.S. premiere, examining topics both familiar and new, including photojournalism, Israeli cinema, WWII, the Middle East, religious tradition, homosexuality, anti-Semitism, and activism, ranging from Michaël Prazan’s three-hour EINSATGRUPPEN: THE DEATH BRIGADES to Adam Elliot’s claymation MARY AND MAX and restorations of Henry Lynn’s BAR MITZVAH (1935) and Falk Harnack’s THE AXE OF WANDSBEK (1951). This year’s crop once again comes from all over the Jewish diaspora, with feature-length narratives, shorts, and documentaries from Australia, Germany, France, Poland, Belgium, Romania, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, the UK, Israel, and the United States. Ludi Boeken’s SAVIORS IN THE NIGHT, about German farmers protecting a Jewish family during World War II, is the opening-night selection, while Marleen Gorris’s WITHIN THE WHIRLWIND, about the struggles of poet and teacher Evgenia Ginzburg (Emily Watson), is the closing-night choice. Many of the films will feature introductions or postscreening discussions with directors, producers, and subjects. In addition to the Walter Reade Theater, several special screenings will take place at the JCC in Manhattan and the Jewish Museum.