The New York Jewish Film Festival is always walking the line between being a festival with Jewish themes or just of festival of films made by Jews. When the films don't have such a Jewish center I wonder how this film festival is more different than any other Hollywood film festival. Hollywood is full of Jews. All films in the U.S. are sort of Jewish films. Or are they? After all, there still is anti-semitsm in America. A lot of films still try not to be too Jewish even when they are made by Jews.
One evening of the festival this year was devoted to films by the Safdie brothers Benny and Josh. They are Syrian Jews who appear to be in their late twenties. They presented five film shorts and one feature film . The shorts were not especially Jewishly themed , but quite surreal and enjoyable. I especially liked the short called The Black Balloon. TBB is about a bouquet of hot air balloons at a children's party that are set free and the adventures of one of the balloons that was set free. It is kind of like an update of that old French film called The Red Balloon which is about a little boy chasing a red hot air balloon in Paris in the late 1950's.
The Safdie brothers also presented a feature film about an immature divorced dad and his two little sons. The family is secular Jewish, although the only mention of Jewishness is their surname which is Sokol. The father portrayed is so immature and his persona is so real that one feels grateful someone like him is not your father. The brothers loosely based this story on their own upbringing which I assume is as kids of divorce . I hope that their real dad was more adult than the dad in the film.
I am torn. An Israeli secular film seems Jewish even if it does not mention religion. I guess Israeli films are about Jews living life in Israel so that has to be qualified as being Jewish enough for a film festival while a film about people happening to be Jewish in America does not always qualify as being a Jewish film
The Safdie brothers are adorable and they drew a much younger than usual crowd to their films at the festival . Of course one question still remains...Are they single....?
2 comments:
You have to remember that the non-frum community defines Judaism as an ethnic identity. A file made by Jews and that features a Jewish character or three is therefore automatically Jewish to them.
True,but its still hard to reconcile.
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