Jewish Film Festival 2024

Enzian Theater mini-fest to screen five features

From The Orlando Weekly, October 30, 2024

The most popular of Enzian Theater’s mini-festivals, the Central Florida Jewish Film Festival will screen five features and one short November 2-4. Co-presented by Shalom Orlando, the event will be held at the Orlando Science Center and Enzian.

Jewish film fests have a surprisingly short history. The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, founded in 1980, is considered the oldest and largest. In contrast, film festivals in general have been around since 1932, when the Venice International Film Festival was born. But Jewish fests have been steadily on the rise over the last 40 years and now number more than 100 worldwide.

Enzian’s fest has been a beacon for the Orlando Jewish community, and for the city’s overall culture, for 26 years. The event has been scaled back from four days to three this year to avoid Election Day, according to Matthew Curtis, programming director.

In addition to film, the event offers Jewish cuisine, plus the theater’s regular fare. The special menu includes potato latkes, holishkes, bagels and lox (smoked salmon), Hebrew National hot dogs and Dr. Brown’s Soda.

The event begins at the Orlando Science Center at 7:45 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 2 (after sundown, to honor the Sabbath) with The Performance (3 stars on 0-5 scale), in which Jeremy Piven plays Harold May, an aging Jewish-American tap dancer bumming his way around small European clubs in 1936. His troupe is talented but is struggling with recognition and funds. So when he is offered a Berlin show for a prestigious Nazi audience and a large check, he can’t resist. Much like Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai, Harold is so motivated by the job that he forgets for whom he is working.

Writer-director Shira Piven’s tale, based on a 2002 Arthur Miller story, grapples with tone and, like Harold, initially struggles to find its footing. But the history and morality lessons are memorable, as is Jeremy Piven’s performance. You might even find yourself wondering, if faced with a similar situation, would you dance for the devil?

Also filled with interesting questions is Unspoken (2 stars) (11 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 3), a coming-of-age narrative getting its Florida premiere. After his grandfather’s death, a closeted, gay American teenager named Noam discovers he might share something else with his grandfather besides Judaism: sexual orientation. Noam’s research reveals not just truth about the Holocaust and his family’s past but himself too.

Considering its great story and relatable performance by Charlie Korman as Noam, writer-director Jeremy Borison’s film is disappointingly pedestrian and never achieves the emotional highs it should, even when revealing its twists. It will find its audience, as it did at the Los Angeles Jewish Film Festival, where it won best narrative. But if you’re looking for one film to skip, this is it.

If the first two films offer an undergraduate discussion of morality and religion, the fest’s third, Stay with Us (3 ½ stars) (literally Rest a Little in French) (2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 3), is at a doctorate level. Half drama, half comedy, and half fiction, half documentary, the French film from famous comedian Gad Elmaleh examines the bonds of religion and family. Elmaleh, his sister and their parents – playing slightly fictionalized versions of themselves – clash over Gad’s conversion from Judaism to Catholicism.

“Return to your religion, the one we gave you,” implores his father. “You’re our son. And we don’t want to lose you.”

The genre-bending movie is the fest’s best and most original thanks to its many nuggets of wisdom, such as a rabbi’s advice to “never ask directions from someone who knows the way, or you will never be able to get lost. … You’re fortunate to be lost.”

Stay with Us is as close to a doc as the fest gets. Regarding the lack of true documentaries, Curtis says, “We did have a couple of good docs that were in the mix at the final selections meeting, but the committee just felt stronger about the five narrative features that were chosen.”

The feature is accompanied by Judy-ism (2 stars), a short dramedy about a Jewish woman contemplating her life on the eve of her wedding.

Another enjoyable comedy-drama about family bonds, All About the Levkoviches (3 ¼ stars) (4:15 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4) concerns a father and son (Zoltán Bezerédy and Tamás Szabó Kimmel, in fine performances) who haven’t spoken in eight years after the son became ultra-religious and moved from the family’s Hungarian home to Israel. When the family matriarch unexpectedly dies, the two undergo an uncomfortable but ultimately revelatory reunion.

After a traditional Shivah ceremony is forced upon him, the father confronts his son: “You don’t get to tell me how to mourn. What do you know about my pain?”

His son might not understand his pain, but director Adam Breier does, and he mines that pain to produce a fine film.

The fest’s most lavish production is Shoshana (2 ¾ stars) (6:45 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4), writer-director Michael Winterbottom’s epic drama about violence in British Palestine in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Zionist Shoshana Borochov (Irina Starshenbaum) and British policeman Thomas Wilkin (Douglas Booth) are lovers on opposite sides of the conflict but with respect for each other, while Tom’s boss, Geoffrey Morton (Harry Potter’s Harry Melling, who steals the show), is determined to quell protests in any way possible. The characters’ real-life stories are slightly altered but retain the heart of the truth and thereby provide a valuable history lesson.

The love affair feels sandwiched in and forgotten at times while the entire narrative is occasionally jumbled and rushed. Nevertheless, the film is an important reminder that the Middle East has been blowing itself apart for well over a century. The dates might change, but violence remains constant. The one positive is that we have films, and festivals, like this to educate us, in hopes that we might one day break the cycle.

A mensch pass, which includes priority seating to all films and a donation to Shalom Orlando, costs $118; a series pass, which includes second-priority seating to all films, is $65; and a single ticket goes for $14. For more information, visit Enzian.org.

© 2024 Orlando Weekly / MeierMovies, LLC