Complete Guide to the Michiana Jewish Film Festival
Including a message from our Film Festival Program Director, Sheri Alpert
We are pleased to present you with the lineup for this month's film festival and hope you will join us either virtually or at DeBartolo! The committee and I have been working diligently over the past several months to get us here, reviewing hundreds of trailers and watching dozens upon dozens of films to find the right mix for this year’s edition. The 8 films we landed on will delight, provide perspective and hopefully lead to thoughtful discussions with other filmgoers.
Between films on Tuesday, May 16 and Wednesday May 17, please take advantage of the tables set up in the lobby outside the theatre to bring your dinner and enjoy fellowship with your friends in attendance.
A special "Ooh La La" dessert table will be set up in between Tuesday's films to thank our sponsors of this year's Michiana Jewish Film Festival.
See you at the movies!
Sheri Alpert
Film Festival Program Director
SheriA@TheJewishFed.org
FAREWELL, MR. HAFFMAN (2022)
Monday, May 15 at 6:30 PM
Dir. by Fred Cavayé | Drama | 116 min | France | French w/subtitles
Occupied Paris, 1941: All members of the Jewish community are instructed to come forward and identify themselves to authorities. Dedicated jeweler Joseph Haffmann (Daniel Auteuil), fearing the worst, arranges for his family to flee the city and offers his employee François Mercier (Gilles Lellouche) the chance to take over his store until the conflict subsides. But his own attempts to escape are thwarted, and Haffmann is forced to seek his assistant’s protection. It’s a risky proposition for both men, and one that Mercier’s wife Blanche (Sara Giraudeau) is skeptical of. As the couple move into the Haffmann home, the agreement turns into a Faustian bargain, one that will forever change the fate of all.
Sponsored by the Kurt & Tessye Simon Fund for Holocaust Remembrance
KARAOKE (2022)
Tuesday, May 16 at 5:30 PM
Dir. by Moshe Rosenthal | Comedy | 100 min | Israel | Hebrew w/subtitles
An offbeat, comedic journey that delights and surprises, Karaoke follows Tova (Rita Shukrun) and Meir (Sasson Gabay), a standard aging couple with 46 years of marriage and two grown daughters. They live a comfortable life, with Meir currently on sabbatical from his academic professorship and Tova running a boutique shop. Their lives get a jolt of excitement from their neighbor from above, Itzik (Lior Ashkenazi), who invites them to his penthouse for karaoke nights. Tova and Meir fall hard for Itzik’s energetic lifestyle. They enter into a competition amongst their other neighbors and soon themselves trying to win Itzik’s attention.
FOUR WINTERS (2022)
Tuesday, May 16 at 8:00 PM
Dir. by Julie Mintz | Documentary | 90 min | USA | English
Over 25,000 Jewish partisans fought back against the Nazis and their collaborators from deep within the forests of WWII’s Eastern Europe, Ukraine and Belarus. Against extraordinary odds, they escaped Nazi slaughter, transforming from young innocents to courageous resistance fighters. Shattering the myth of Jewish passivity, these last surviving partisans tell their stories of resistance in Four Winters, revealing a stunning narrative of heroism and resilience.
Co-presented with the Civil Rights Heritage Center
MY NEIGHBOR ADOLF (2022)
Wednesday, May 17 at 5:30 PM
Dir. by Leon Prudovsk | Comedy | 96 min | Israel, Poland, Colombia
English, German, Hebrew & Spanish w/subtitles
This bittersweet comedy is set in Colombia during May 1960, just a few days after the abduction of the Nazi criminal Adolf Eichmann by Mossad agents in Argentina. Polsky (David Hayman), a lonely and grumpy Holocaust survivor, lives in the remote Colombian countryside. He spends his days playing chess and tending his beloved rose bushes. One day, when a mysterious old German man (Udo Kier) moves in next-door, he suspects that his new neighbor is Adolf Hitler. Because nobody believes him, he embarks on a detective mission to find the evidence. But, in order to gather evidence, he will need to be closer to his neighbor than he would like. So close that the two could almost become friends.
Join NEXTGen (young adults ages 21-45) for dinner at O'Rourke's Public House at 6 PM prior to HUMMUS FULL TRAILER. Click here for more info.
HUMMUS FULL TRAILER (2022)
Wednesday, May 17 at 8:00 PM
Dir. by Asaf Kobrovsky | Comedy | 92 min | Israel | Hebrew w/subtitles
Three very different shipping containers are mistakenly mixed up resulting in a scramble to find the correct trailer. Johnny Saloniki (Michael Moshonov), the innocent son of a mafiosa, is pulled into the family business to find the missing trailers before time runs out. Hummus Full Trailer is a colorful and hilarious look at how a mix of folks can discover each other’s secrets all while trying to keep a wedding on track, hitmen away, and flowers alive.
SHTTL (2022)
Thursday, May 18 at 6:30 PM
Dir. by Ady Walter | Drama | 108 min | France, Ukraine | Yiddish w/subtitles
A filmmaker (Moshe Lobel) returns from Kyiv to his rural village to marry the love of his life. He is expected to marry the Rabbi’s daughter (Sharon Azrieli), which disrupts the balance of the whole town. In one unflinching shot, this film presents a day in the life of a Jewish village before it disappears. SHTTL is the story of the inhabitants of a Yiddish Ukrainian village at the border of Poland 24 hours before the Nazi invasion, known as Operation Barbarossa. Today, there are no such villages in existence; the production fully reconstructed a traditional ‘Shtetl’ outside of Kyiv. Following the filming, the set was to be turned into a museum but has since been destroyed in the ongoing political crisis between Russia and Ukraine.
MATCHMAKING (2022)
VIRTUAL - streaming only, May 19-22
Dir. by Erez Tadmor | Comedy | 96 min | Israel | Hebrew & Yiddish w/subtitles
Moti Bernstein is the son every mother wants, a student every Rabbi loves to teach, the ideal Yeshiva study mate, the perfect match for every bride. He has it all: a good family, a brilliant mind, and he is not bad looking either…. In search of a wife, he will meet the best girls in the Jewish orthodox world but will fall for the one girl he can never have. The only one he wants. Against everything he knows and every value, he holds dear, Moti will be forced to go out on a limb in the most unexpected and unusual of ways. All that remains is to see who will win. The system or the inner voice.
RECKONINGS (2022)
VIRTUAL - streaming only, May 19-22
Dir. by Roberta Grossman | Documentary | 74 min | USA | English
They met in secret to negotiate the unthinkable: compensation for survivors of the largest mass genocide in history. Holocaust survivors were in urgent need of help, but how could reparations be determined for the unprecedented destruction and suffering of a people? Directed by award-winning filmmaker Roberta Grossman, this documentary recounts the tense negotiations between Jewish and German leaders. Under the constant threat of violence, they forged ahead knowing it would never be enough, but hoping it could at least be an acknowledgement and a step towards healing.
Sponsored by the Kurt & Tessye Simon Fund for Holocaust Remembrance