Marzec ‘68 (March ‘68)
Sunday October 15, 1:30pm and Monday October 16, 7pm*
2022, Poland; 122 minutes, Polish with English subtitles
Directed by Krysztof Lang

*Our Monday October 16 screening will feature a talk-back after the film with Karen Auerbach, Associate Professor of History, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies

In this gripping coming-of-age story set against the volatile backdrop of late-1960s Communist Warsaw, Hania, a student at the state theater school, experiences political awakening and her own personal revolution. At first, Hania is blinded by love, falling intensely for technology student Janek, whom she meets at a play opening; gradually, however, she comes to realize that her fellow Jewish citizens—including Hania’s doctor father—are being persecuted in a series of antisemitic purges conducted in response to the hate-fueled rhetoric of Poland’s leader, Władysław Gomułka. When her family decides to emigrate for their own safety, Hania doesn’t want to join them, and instead tries to build a life with Janek. However, things spiral out of control, leading to a powerful climax set during the infamous events of March 1968. Inspired by a moment in time that shaped the social consciousness of director Krzysztof Lang, the film depicts the momentous collision of history and romance.

Speaker Bio: Karen Auerbach, Associate Professor of History, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies BIO: Karen Auerbach is an Associate Professor and Ambassador Stuart E. Eizenstat Scholar in Jewish History at UNC-Chapel Hill. Professor Auerbach’s research focuses on the social history of Polish Jews in the nineteenth and twentieth century. Her first book, The House at Ujazdowskie 16: Jewish Families in Warsaw after the Holocaust, published in 2013, is a microhistory of Jewish families who were neighbors in an apartment building in Warsaw after the Holocaust, exploring the reconstruction of communities and identifications in postwar Poland. Her second book, The Nighttime Butterfly: A Young Woman in Warsaw at the Turn of the Century, is under contract with Yale University Press. Professor Auerbach’s other projects include information networks and the history of Yiddish in Eastern Europe during the Holocaust. Her teaching focuses on modern Jewish history, the Holocaust, and East European history.

1341 Frames of Love and War
Monday October 16, 4:30pm and Tuesday October 17, 7pm
2022, Israel; 90 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles
Directed by Ran Tal

“The most horrible things are sometimes aesthetic,” says Israel’s celebrated photojournalist Micha Bar-Am, who for decades was the country’s photo correspondent for The New York Times. For a year and a half, he, and his archivist wife Orna allowed director Ran Tal (The Museum, SFJFF 2018) to enter their vast archive. As they mine this extraordinary trove of over 500,000 photos, the film seamlessly intertwines an historical narrative of a country with Bar-Am’s personal reflections on the psychological and personal toll of bearing witness to multiple wars. While the protagonist is generally quite forthcoming—frequently interrupted, corrected, or scolded by his wife—there are certain subjects which Bar-Am flatly refuses to discuss.

Beyond this narrative tribute, the film offers a unique cinematic, visual, and sensory experience that explores the relationship between sound and picture, and between movement and stillness. It explores how to imbue still photography with movement on the one hand, while freezing cinematic movement to distill meaning and emotion on the other. 1341 Frames of Love and War reveals the enormous price that comes along with documenting atrocities and wars while providing an intimate portrait of an artist and a meditation on memory, violence, and identity. It is a complex love letter to the beauty and horror of photographic imagery and to the country whose image Bar-Am helped shape.

Speaker Bio: Shai Ginsbert is an Associate Professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies – Duke University. His work focuses on Israel and its culture in its relation to Jewish nationalism and its variants. He is especially interested in the way works of culture shape the political imagination and vice versa, the engagement with politics shapes our perception of culture, society and history. In this context, he has written on Israeli and Jewish-international cinema, Hebrew literature, Israeli historiography and Jewish politics of the 19th and 20th century.

Rabbi on the Block
Sunday October 22, 10am* and Wednesday October 25, 7pm*
2023, US; 88 minutes, English
Directed by Brad Rothchild

*Our Sunday October 22 and Wednesday October 25 screenings will feature a talk-back after the film with director Brad Rothchild, via Zoom
[NOTE: This talk-back schedule has changed from what was previously publicized due to changes in the speakers’ availability.]

This inspiring documentary follows Black Rabbinical student Tamar Manassah’s work as a community organizer based on the South Side of Chicago. As the founder of Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings (MASK), she tirelessly pursues social justice. Manasseh champions reproductive rights and gun control while leading Yom Kippur services. Eager to pave a path for her two children and grandson, she decides to become a rabbi so that she can serve as a bridge between communities and create welcoming spaces that bring together all people against common fears. Director Brad Rothschild (They Ain’t Ready for Me, SFJFF 2020) offers an intimate portrait of their congregation, Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, which becomes a model for a diverse and inclusive Jewish center.

Speaker Bio: Director/Producer Brad Rothschild is an award winning producer and writer with both a creative and a business background. He received a Masters in International Affairs and a Masters in Business Administration, both from Columbia University. From 1995-1997, he served as the Speechwriter and Director of Communications for the Mission of Israel to the United Nations.

Brad produced the award-winning documentary feature, Kinderblock 66: Return to Buchenwald. The film has screened in the Jerusalem Film Festival and in over 20 festivals in the United States and around the world. Brad directed the documentary film African Exodus, about the plight of Israel’s African refugees and the documentary film Tree Man, about the people who come to New York City to sell Christmas trees every holiday season. Tree Man won the Audience Award at the St. Lawrence International Film Festival. He currently has several feature-length and short documentaries in development.

Farewell Mr. Haffman
Sunday October 22, 1:30pm and Monday October 23, 7:30pm*
2021, France; 116 minutes, French with English subtitles
Directed by Fred Cavaye

*Our Monday October 23 screening will feature a talk-back after the film with Rose Mills of the Holocaust Speakers Bureau

In this acclaimed, engrossing drama set in Paris during the Nazi occupation, beloved French actor Daniel Auteuil (Jean de Florette) stars as Joseph Haffmann, a Jewish jeweler who sends his family away to safety, with the intention of joining them later. Haffmann has decided to hand off the business to his trusted assistant François Mercier (Gilles Lellouche) and Mercier’s wife, Blanche (Sara Giraudeau—though Haffmann’s plans go awry when he is unable to escape the city under the watch of German authorities. After Haffmann returns home, the Merciers agree to let him stay in their basement, but they strike a deal that will change the course of all their lives. Based on a play by Jean-Philippe Daguerre, Farewell, Mr. Haffmann is a twisting, turning, and satisfying tale that reveals the complex and contradictory sides of humanity pushed to its darkest limits.

Speaker Bio: Rose Mills is a second generation Holocaust survivor. She has been a Board member of the Center for Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Education of North Carolina and the Holocaust Speakers Bureau for many years.  She has spoken to numerous school groups about topics relating to Kristallnacht; separation of families;  hiding from the Nazis; Teresienstadt (Terezin); immigration to the US after the war. 

America
Monday October 23, 4:30pm* and Tuesday October 24, 7pm**
2022, Israel/Germany/Czech Republic; 127 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles

*Our Monday October 23 screening will feature a talk-back after the film with Dr. Yaron Shemer, Carolina Center for Jewish Studies
**Our Tuesday October 24 screening will feature a talk-back after the film with Rabbi Daniel Greyber, Beth El Synagogue

An Israeli swimming tutor living in Chicago returns to Israel after 10 years of absence to bury his father. An encounter with a beloved childhood friend and his newly engaged girlfriend will set a series of events in motion that will affect everyone's lives. A story set between a flower shop and an ancient monastery, between a swimming pool in Chicago and the Mediterranean, between life and death - and somewhere in the middle.

Speaker Bios:
Daniel Greyber is rabbi at Beth El Synagogue in Durham and is the author of Faith Unravels: A Rabbi’s Struggle with Grief and God. In 2019 he served as Team USA Rabbi at the 19th World Maccabiah Games in Israel. Formerly a Jerusalem Fellow at the Mandel Leadership Institute, faculty member at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies in Los Angeles and the Executive Director of Camp Ramah in California, he currently serves on the editorial board of Conservative Judaism. His articles have been featured in a wide range of Jewish publications.

Dr. Shemer is an associate professor of Israel Cultural Studies and Jewish Studies in the department of Asian and Middle Eastern studies at UNC, with a research focus on Israeli ethnic cinema. YHe earned his B.F.A. from Tel Aviv University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Film Studies from The University of Texas at Austin.

This program is made possible by a grant from the Shepard Broad Foundation, and sponsorship from Ugo Goetzel and Ina Wallace along with Marion and Stanley Robboy.