JCC film fest to celebrate diverse cinema culture

THE OPPORTUNITY to see Tovah Feldshuh on screen in her award-winning Broadway turn in “Golda’s Balcony” — and to greet the celebrated actor in person — may very well be the high point of JCC MetroWest’s 19th annual New Jersey Jewish Film Festival, March 27-April 7.

“Golda’s Balcony, The Film” — created after thediscovery of a rare shoot of what became the longest-running one-woman show in Broadway history — will be shown on Friday, April 5, at 11:30 a.m. at the Cooperman JCC in West Orange.

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Written by Tony winner William Gibson (“The Miracle Worker”), “Golda’s Balcony”deftly covers Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir’s storied life, but centers on the emotional and diplomatic crises arising out of the existential threat to Israel before and during the Yom Kippur War.The New York Times lauded Feldshuh’s “riveting, layered” performance and called the production a “perfect merging of playwright, actress, and character.”

The festival will offerover two dozen acclaimed films — among them 21N.J. premieres— including features, documentaries, comedies, and shorts from Israel, America, France, Germany, Poland, and other countries; many will be followed by discussions led by filmmakersand experts.

Opening the festival on Wednesday, March 27, will be the award-winning French film “Promise at Dawn,” based on the epic memoir by novelist Romain Gary, who was born a Lithuanian Jew in 1914 and became a noted diplomat, film director, and warhero.

The closing night double feature on Sunday, April 7, will include a short, “The Outer Circle,” about the fraught gathering of an Iraqi-Jewish-English family, and “The Other Story,” by renowned filmmaker Avi Nesher, about two young Israeli women — one fleeing secular hedonism for the discipline of faith, the other desperate to transcend her strict religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom. Guests are invited to dessert receptions on opening and closing nights.

In between, audiences can see films offering an eclectic range of stories, including:





An Israeli father struggles to keep his family together while transitioning to a woman; an octogenarian sets out to find and exact revenge on the SS officer who killed his parents and is joined by the Nazi’s son; Master Sgt. Roddie Edmonds declared, “We are all Jews here,” when his German captors ordered him to identify the Jews among his fellow POWs; an Israeli woman’s pride in her professional advancement is upended when she is the target of her boss’s unwanted advances; Israeli doctors save the lives of wounded Syrians secretly transported across the border from their war-ravaged country; a Palestinian father and son spend a day delivering invitations for a family wedding, revealing the generational gaps in Arab-Israeli society; desperate to ensure that a record of the Nazis’ genocidal brutality not die with them, members of the Oyneg Shabes group risk all to chronicle the reality of life in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Not to mention:a 97-year-old Holocaust survivor striving to be recognized as a Death Metal Singer, Jewish retirees so devoted to Latin dancing they earn the title “the Mamboniks,” and four comrades doing their all to see that their friend receives the Nobel Prize he worked for all his life (one problem: he’s dead).

Festival director Sarah Diamondsaid, “The committeehas worked long and hardto further the festival’s mission: to foster the growth of Jewish culture, identity, and community by presenting a wide range of exceptional films of Jewish interest.”

“It takes more than a village to put on a festival of this size and scope,” said festival co-chair AndreaBergman. “We are so fortunate to have a stellar line-up of staff and volunteers to help us showcase these incredible films.” Her co-chair, JoniCohen, expressed her pride “that the festival has become so well recognized in New Jersey and beyond. It’s something we’ve all worked hard to achieve.”

Committee membersCaren and Herb Ford of Livingston founded the NJJFF in 2000.