Opening Night, sponsored by the Jacob & Charlotte Lehrman Foundation:
MAGIC MEN

In the latest feature from the directors of FLOOD (Mabul), A MATTER OF SIZE, and STRANGERS, a 78-year-old Greek-born atheist (Makram Khouri, Ophir-winner for Best Actor) and his estranged Hasidic rapper son travel from Israel to Greece searching for the magician who saved his father’s life during World War II. Their Adriatic road trip involves much familial bickering but also has moments of affection, humor and good will as father and son reconnect during their adventure.

DIR/SCR Guy Nattiv, Erez Tadmor; PROD Amitan Mandelzon, Shemi Shoenfeld. Israel, 2014, color, 100 min. In Hebrew and Greek with English subtitles.

Opening Night Party will be held at the Silver Spring Civic Building at Veterans Plaza immediately following the screening. Catered by Provisions.

Free parking at the Town Square Garage (801 Ellsworth Drive), two blocks from the theater and across the street from the Opening Night Party.

Centerpiece Evening:
THEODORE BIKEL: IN THE SHOES OF SHOLOM ALEICHEM
Q&A with Theodore Bikel

Portraits of two beloved icons — Sholom Aleichem and Theodore Bikel — are woven together in this enchanting new documentary. The two men have much in common: wit, wisdom and talent, all shot through with deep humanity and Yiddishkeit. Theodore Bikel, the unstoppable performer whose career spans more than 150 screen roles (including an Oscar®-nominated turn in THE DEFIANT ONES) and countless stage and musical productions, is also the foremost interpreter of Sholom Aleichem’s work. Now 90, Bikel has played Tevye the Milkman on stage more than 2,000 times, and has animated Aleichem’s work through his two celebrated musical plays about the great Russian author.

DIR/SCR John Lollos; SCR Theodore Bikel, Marsha Lebby; PROD Eric Drath. US, 2014, color, 75 min.

24 DAYS
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

In 2006, Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old Parisian Jew of Moroccan descent, gave his phone number to a pretty young woman. Later, when his kidnappers demanded ransom from his family, it became clear that she actually lured Ilan to his capture — he was literally flirting with death. Based on a book co-written by the victim’s mother, Alexandre Arcady’s cinematic adaption offers a vicious cycle of dangerously real events including the kidnapping and torture of Ilan, the 700 phone calls, insults and threats received by the family, and the Parisian police’s incompetence in dealing with an anti-Semitic crime.

DIR/SCR/PROD Alexandre Arcady; SCR Emilie Frenche, Antoine Lacomblez, from a book by Ruth Halimi and Emilie Frenche. France, 2014, color, 108 min. In French with English subtitles.

IT ALWAYS RAINS ON SUNDAY

With an atmosphere redolent of pre-war French “poetic realism,” this recently rediscovered and restored film is a Brueghelian slice of post-war British life. Amid a raucous street market, a feckless trio of thieves tries to unload a truckload of hot roller skates. A music store owner chases one shiksa too many. A fight fixer drops a thick roll in the youth center collection box. In the meantime, a comfortably pipe-smoking inspector Jack Warner plays Javert throughout a long day – climaxing with an excitingly photographed chase through railroad yards and puffing steam engines, two suicide attempts and a murder.

DIR/SCR Robert Hamer; SCR Angus MacPhail, Henry Cornelius, from a novel by Arthur La Bern; PROD Michael Balcon. UK, 1947, b&w, 92 min.

THE MUSES OF ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER
Mid-Atlantic Premiere
Q&A with filmmaker Asaf Galay

Many books, biographies and articles have been written about the life and work of Isaac Bashevis Singer (Nobel Prize winner in literature, best known for his story "Yentl"). This film uncovers a previously unknown and eccentric chapter in his life: in the mid 1960s, Bashevis Singer established an army of female translators – more than 40 women – who helped spread his work. He chose these translators carefully, was inspired by their presence, and often fell in love with them. Nine of the women who were intimately familiar with the man and his work are still here, and theirs are the only voices heard in the film.

DIR/PROD Asaf Galay; PROD Keren Michael. Israel, 2014, color, 72 min.

APPLES FROM THE DESERT
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

Rebecca Abravanel is the only daughter of an Orthodox family living in Jerusalem. Unhappy with her strict upbringing, Rebecca secretly opens herself to the secular world. At first her transgressions are relatively minor: she peeks in on Israeli dance classes, and joins the co-ed sessions at the beckoning of a cute boy. Eventually, she runs away with him to a desert kibbutz. Her parents struggle with the repercussions, and Rebecca, too, finds secular life more complicated than she had anticipated. Based on the bestselling book by Savyon Leibrecht, who also contributed the screenplay.

DIR/SCR Arik Lubetzky, Matti Harari; SCR Savyon Liebrecht; PROD Michael Sharfshtein, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery. Israel, 2014, color, 90 min. In Hebrew with English subtitles.

THE GO-GO BOYS
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

Directed by Hilla Medalia (DANCING IN JAFFA), this documentary reveals the inside story of two Israeli-born cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who in pursuit of the American Dream turned the Hollywood power structure upside down, producing more than 300 films and forming Cannon – at its apex, the most powerful independent film company in the world. Celebrated, condemned, loved and loathed, Cannon’s legacy is undeniable, wielding a pop-cultural power that continues to seep into modern life today. The duo brought audiences Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and a flop of epic proportions in 1987’s SUPERMAN IV, but also supported cinema artists John Cassavates, Franco Zeffirelli and Andrei Konchalovsky.

DIR/SCR Hilla Medalia; SCR Daniel Sivan; PROD Yariv Horowitz, Roy Lev. Israel, 2014, color. In Hebrew with English subtitles.

NEXT TO HER
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

Chelli is raising her mentally disabled sister Gabby all by herself. When the social worker discovers she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, Chelli is forced to place her in a day-care center and the void left by her sister’s absence makes room for a man in her life. That man tears another hole in the sisters’ symbiotic relationship, and the three are slowly drawn into a strange triangle, where boundaries between love, sacrifice, nurturing and torturing are broken. With mesmerizing performances from two female leads, Dana Ivgy (BROKEN WINGS, ZERO MOTIVATION) and Liron Ben-Shlush.

DIR Asaf Korman; SCR Liron Ben-Shlush, Sari Ezouz; PROD Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg. Israel, 2014, color, 90 min. In Hebrew with English subtitles.

WJFF Centerpiece Evening and Visionary Award, sponsored by Louis and Ralph Dweck:
HESTER STREET
Q&A with actress Carol Kane

Joan Micklin Silver’s humorous and poignant movie focuses on a traditional Jewish woman (Carol Kane) who arrives with her son to America in the 1890s, only to discover that her cheating husband has assimilated and resents his wife’s old-fashioned ways. In an Oscar®-nominated performance, Kane overcomes her heartbreak by adapting to the new land. This groundbreaking independent film tells a heartfelt immigration tale full of Yiddish sentiment and culture and paints a wonderfully vibrant picture of the Lower East Side. Film selected and synopsis written by Aviva Kempner, WJFF Founder and Director from 1990-1993.

DIR/SCR Joan Micklin Silver, from a novella by Abraham Cahan; PROD Raphael D. Silver. US, 1975, b&w, 90 min. In English and Yiddish with English subtitles.

LITTLE WHITE LIE
Q&A with filmmaker Lacey Schwartz

What defines one's identity, family of origin or the family that raises one? Lacey Schwartz, who tells her remarkable story, grew up in a typical upper-middle-class Jewish household in Woodstock, New York, with loving parents and a strong sense of her Jewish identity — despite the open questions from those around her about how a white girl could have such dark skin. At the age of 18, a freshman at Georgetown University, she finally learned the truth: her biological father was not the man who raised her, but a black man named Rodney. The family secret can stay hidden no longer as she begins her quest to reconcile the hidden pieces of her life.

DIR/SCR/PROD Lacey Schwartz; SCR/PROD Mehret Mandefro. US, 2014, color, 65 min.

THE GOLEM (1920)
Silent film w/live musical accompaniment by
Gary Lucas

Grammy-nominated Gary Lucas presents a reprisal of one of his most beloved original scores: the 1920 German silent horror-fantasy expressionist film Golem, the tale of a 16th century rabbi who made a man out of clay to save the Jewish community of Prague from annihilation.

DIR Carl Boese; DIR/SCR Paul Wegener; SCR Henrik Galeen; PROD Paul Davidson. Germany, 1920, b&w, 91 min. Silent film.

Known for his work with Captain Beefheart, Jeff Buckley and Gods and Monsters, and for his innovative film scores, Gary Lucas has been dubbed “the Thinking Man’s Guitar Hero” by The New Yorker, “the world’s most popular avant-rock guitarist” by The Independent (UK), “one of the 100 Greatest Living Guitarists” by Classic Rock and the “Guitarist of 1000 Ideas” by The New York Times.

THE FAREWELL PARTY
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

A compassionate dark comedy about friendship and knowing when to say goodbye. A group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home build a machine for self-euthanasia in order to help their terminally ill friend. When rumors of the machine begin to spread, more and more people ask for their help, and the friends are faced with an emotional dilemma. Winner of Best Cinematography and Best Actor, 2015 Ophirs. “[W]e discovered that when the body fails and the mind remains lucid, self-irony and humor remain the best way to cope with the prospect of death.” –Tal Granit and Sharon Maymon.

DIR/SCR Tal Granit, Sharon Maymon; PROD Moshe Edery, Leon Edri, Osnat Handelsman-Keren, Thanassis Karathanos, Talia Kleinhendler, Haim Mecklberg, Estee Yacov-Mecklberg. Israel, 2014, color, 93 min. In Hebrew with English subtitles.

THE DOVE FLYER
Q&A with Edwin Shuker, Vice-President of the European Jewish Congress
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

Based on the autobiographical blockbuster novel by Eli Amir, this sweeping epic recalls a lost and cherished time when more than 125,000 Jews lived in Iraq. It follows the teenage Kabi as he navigates the final years of the community’s existence in Iraq, before its expulsion and resettlement to 1950s Israel. When his uncle Hizkel is imprisoned, Kabi sets off to find him, joining the Zionist underground movement. The film beautifully illustrates the complex existence of the Jewish community in Iraq, which had strong ties to the surrounding Muslim world and Arabic culture, yet simultaneously feared for its safety.

DIR/SCR/PROD Nissim Dayan; SCR Eli Amir; PROD Hezi Bezalel, Leon Edery, Moshe Edery, Dov Keren, David Mandil. Israel, 2014, color, 108 min. In Hebrew with English subtitles.

ABOVE AND BEYOND
Mid-Atlantic Premiere

In 1948, just three years after the liberation of Nazi death camps, a group of Jewish-American pilots answered a call for help. In secret and at great personal risk, they smuggled planes out of the U.S., trained behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia and flew for Israel in its War of Independence. This ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war; they also embarked on personal journeys of discovery, sacrifice and renewed Jewish pride. Directed by Roberta Grossman (Hava Nagila) and produced by Nancy Spielberg (Elusive Justice), this film celebrates the pilots who formed the Israeli Air Force.

DIR Roberta Grossman; SCR Sophie Sartain; PROD Nancy Spielberg. US, 2014, color, 89 min.

SECRETS OF WAR
East Coast Premiere

During World War II, everyone had to keep secrets to survive, but at what price? Lambert and Tuur, two 12-year-old boys living in a small town in Nazi-occupied Netherlands, share a strong friendship. It’s 1943, but for these thick-as-thieves friends, the German occupation is merely inspiration for more exciting cave-war games. Even this bond is put at risk with the arrival of a lively young girl named Maartje, carrying with her a heavy secret about her past. As Tuur and Maartje become close, the estranged Lambert grows increasingly jealous and acts irrationally, exposing Maartje’s secret with far-reaching consequences that are beyond his understanding. Recommended for ages 10 and up.

DIR Dennis Bots; SCR Karin van Holst Pellekaan, from a novel by Jacques Vriens; PROD David-Jan Bijker, Reinier Selen, Harro van Staverden. Netherlands/Belgium/Luxembourg, 2014, color, 95 min. In Dutch with English subtitles.

The Trilogy of Love

Laurence Attali’s three-part ode to Senegal, spirituality and the nature of love. Presenting an extremely rare screening of the full work.

EVEN THE WIND (1999)
A taxi driver traveling at full speed through the streets of Dakar. Beside him, a platinum blonde girl, whose attention he’s aiming for, but missing. In the back seat, a golden saxophone.

BAOBOB (2000)
A marvelous journey to the heart of the forest of Dakar, where a djinn nestles in every baobab. The spirits guide viewers through this adventure.

THE UNSHOD MAN (2002)
A free interpretation of the Jewish law of Levirat, which obliges a brother to marry the widow of his deceased brother. A vibrantly shot exploration of the mystical link between Judaic and Senegalese traditions.

DIR Laurence Attali. Senegal/France, 1999-2002, color, 75 min. In Wolof and French with English subtitles.