Tampa Bay Jewish Film Festival 2005

Directions to each theater



Wednesday, February 16, 2005                 Muvico at Baywalk    

7:00 PM          Lost Embrace

This is Ariel’s world: a small shopping mall in downtown Buenos Aires , where the Italian shopkeepers shout all day, the Koreans sell feng-shui, his mother sells bras, and old Osvaldo sells nothing.  Ariel wants to start a new life in Europe , and wonders why his father never returned after leaving home to fight in the Yom Kippur War.  In this story of a first, painful encounter between a father and his adult son, Daniel  Burman conjures up a little world of engaging characters who pursue their humble dreams with gentle humor and an infectious generosity of spirit. Burman is in the vanguard of new filmmaking talent emerging from Latin America . Lost Embrace won the prestigious Silver Bear at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival, and actor Daniel Hendler, the film’s star and the director’s alter-ego, also won a Silver Bear for his performance as Ariel.   Spanish with English subtitles

8:45 PM                      Seven Days in Ónce

Rich in local flavor and colorful characters, this documentary portrays daily life in the “Ónce” neighborhood of Buenos Aires where Jewish    immigrants from Europe and the Middle East have settled since the early twentieth century. Today, they constitute one of the largest and most important Jewish communities in Latin America . Casual  conversations with some of the neighborhood’s native sons and daughters, young and old, provides a folk history of the neighborhood, its residents, its institutions, and the effects of the 1994 terrorist attack on the Jewish community center in its heart.  Spanish with English subtitles

Wednesday, February 16, 2005        Sunrise Cinema at Old Hyde Park

7:30 PM                     Perlasca

This feature film tells the important story of Giorgio Perlasca, who while working for an Italian importing firm in Budapest , Hungary in 1944, witnessed the plight of Hungarian Jews.  Perlasca, through selfless courage and incredible ingenuity, devoted himself to saving as many people as he possibly could.  He saved more than 5000 lives.  After the war, Perlasca kept his achievements to himself.  Only later in life, just a few years before his death in 1992, was he recognized as a war hero.  Perlasca has been referred to as the “Italian Wallenberg.”  Streets in several provincial Italian towns as well as in Rome have been named after him and he was awarded the “Righteous Gentile” designation by Yad Vashem.  Italian with English subtitles

Thursday, February 17, 2005                Sunrise Cinema at Old Hyde Park        

7:00 PM                      Lost Embrace

8:45 PM                      Seven Days in Ónce

(repeat of Wed. screening at Muvico Baywalk-see description above)

Thursday, February 17, 2005           St. Petersburg College-Clearwater

        

7:00 PM                      Imaginary Witness

Directed by Academy Award®-nominated and Emmy-winning director Daniel Anker, Imaginary Witness explores the ways American movies shape our perception of the Holocaust. Using rarely seen footage; first-hand accounts by directors, actors, writers, and producers; and clips from such films as The Great Dictator, The Pawnbroker, Sophie’s Choice, and Schindler’s List, the film examines Hollywood’s complex responses to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Beginning with American ambivalence and denial during the height of Nazism, the film explores the silence of the postwar years, the impact of television, and the current climate.  Narrated by Gene Hackman, the documentary features interviews with Steven Spielberg, Sidney Lumet, Rod Steiger, Annette Insdorf, Neal Gabler, and Sharon Rivo. 

Saturday, February 19, 2005                 Sunrise Cinema at Old Hyde Park  

7:15 PM                 Suzy Gold      

(Parental Guidance recommended)

A little bit of Brigitte Jones' Diary, a little bit of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a pretty twenty something Jewish girl is expected to marry a nice Jewish boy or break her parent's heart. As Suzie Gold's sister prepares to get married, it seems only natural that Suzie's thoughts should turn to the state of her own love-life. While her doting but dysfunctional family desperately wants her to be happy-preferably by finding a good Jewish boy to settle down with-Suzie meets Darren, a boy from work, and they start a heady romance. But the relationship sours when Suzie finds herself unable to bring him home, worried that he won't match up to her family's exacting (double) standards. A romantic comedy set in the vibrant and colorful world of North London , full of humor, spunk and warmth, Suzie Gold conveys the universal struggle of finding one's true identity amidst social conventions and family tradition.

Saturday, February 19, 2005                 Sunrise Cinema at Old Hyde Park

9:15 PM        Turn Left at the End of the World

                                                                                 (explicit nudity-adults only)

In the late sixties, in a tiny Israeli village, isolated in the middle of nowhere, two immigrant families ­ one from Morocco and the other from India ­ become neighbors. They share nothing but a dream. And as they are forced to live together, the two communities, eying each other, attempt to build a sense of identity. In order to assert their imperial identity, the Indians from the village put together a rag tag cricket team.  The Moroccans, who take the game as a ritualistic act of condensation, do their utmost to disrupt. Meanwhile, each family has a teenage daughter negotiating the landscapes of the sexual revolution. When the sultry Moroccan Nicol and the heady Indian Sara become friends, their youth and desire for freedom help them overcome prejudices. In this isolated place, the road to harmony twists joyfully with many surprises.  Hebrew with English subtitles

Sunday, February 20, 2005                               Muvico at Baywalk 

      

2:00 PM                     Watermarks

Watermarks is the story of the champion women swimmers of the legendary Jewish sports club, Hakoah Vienna. Hakoah ("Strength" in Hebrew) was founded in 1909 in response to the notorious Aryan Paragraph, which forbade Austrian sports clubs from accepting Jewish athletes. Hakoah rapidly grew into one of Europe's biggest athletic clubs, while achieving astonishing success in many diverse sports. In the 1930s Hakoah's best-known triumphs came from its women swimmers, who dominated national competitions in Austria . In 1938, the Nazis shut down the club, but the swimmers all managed to flee the country before the war broke out, thanks to an escape operation. Sixty-five years later, director Yaron Zilberman meets the members of the swimming team in their homes around the world, and arranges for them to have a reunion in their old swimming pool in Vienna .   Some subtitles used

Sunday, February 20, 2005                               Muvico at Baywalk 

4:00 PM                      Divided We Fall

In World War II Nazi occupied Czechoslovakia, a childless couple, Josef and Marie Cizek, can only watch while the Jewish family of their employers, the Wieners, are first removed from their own home to a spare room in their house by the Nazis, then removed to the far off facility of Thierenstadt. Years later, young David Wiener, the sole surviving member of that family has managed to escape and make it to the Cizeks. Although fully aware of the extreme danger of harbouring a Jew in the Third Reich, the Cizek's can not permit themselves to leave David to certain death and agree to hide him. However, this decision leads to terrible danger of discovery by the Nazis and especially their friend and Nazi collaborator, Horst Prohazka, who is attracted to Marie. With desperate cleverness and luck, the Cizeks struggle to keep the secret, even when Horst begins to suspect. In doing so, they find themselves making unorthodox choices and learning about the true nature of the people around them.

German and Czech with English subtitles

Monday, February 21, 2005                              Hillel Jewish Student Union-USF

7:00 PM                      No. 17

The suicide bombing of a bus on its way to Tiberius from Tel Aviv in June 2002 claimed seventeen victims, but only sixteen were identified. Victim No. 17 was buried a few weeks later, no one having come   forward to claim him missing. Director David Ofek and cinematographer and co-director Ron Rotem conduct their own investigation to discover the identity of No. 17. Full of twists, surprises, and seemingly dead ends, theirs is a gripping, suspenseful journey that reveals the world and the people behind the headlines. The film won the Special Jury Award at Toronto’s prestigious 2004 Hot Docs International Film Festival; the award for Best Documentary at Tel Aviv’s DocAviv 2003; and the 2003 Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary.  Hebrew with English subtitles

Monday, February 21, 2005                              Hillel Jewish Student Union-USF 

       

This is a realistic drama that takes place in a middle-class Israeli neighborhood and involves the Ulman family- Dafna and her four children. The father has recently died under trivial circumstances and his death has left the family hurting, and in economic straits. It is the beginning of September, the first day of school. In most families this occasion generates excitement; for the Ullmans it produces one crisis after the other. As the day starts their stories develop and intertwine. The five-year-old girl suffers from feelings of abandonment, the ten-year-old boy tries to break the world record in the free jump (into an empty swimming pool), the teenage boy has quit school and works handing out flyers disguised as a mouse. The two women try to function as mothers. One of them, however, is herself only 17 years old. 

Hebrew with English subtitles

Directions to each theatre...

Sunrise Cinema at Hyde Park

1609 Swann Ave. - Tampa

Take the Howard/Armenia exit and turn right at the first street (Armenia). Take this street until it dead ends at Swann Avenue and go left. Go past the light on Howard, pass the railroad tracks and the theater is on the left.

Parking – There’s a lot in the back and covered parking garages throughout Old Hyde Park Village

Muvico at Baywalk

151 2nd Ave. North - St. Pete

I-275 South to I-375(Exit 23A)
Stay in extreme left lane which becomes 4th Ave. N. Continue on 4th Ave.to 2nd St. N. Turn right at 2nd and proceed past 2nd Ave. N. Turn left into the Mid-Core Parking Garage (3/4 block).

I-275 North to I-175 (Exit 22). Move to extreme left lane; go straight until you reach 3rd St. S. and turn left. Proceed on 3rd St. S. to 2nd Ave. N. and turn right. Proceed to 2nd St. N. and turn right. Turn left into the Mid-Core Parking Garage (3/4 block).

St. Petersburg College

2465 Drew St. – Clearwater

Take S.R. 60 across to Clearwater. Stay on 60 and pass US 19. Turn right at the first light after US 19. The campus will be a short way up on the left side of the street.

Take US 19 North to Gulf to Bay (SR 60). Turn Left onto Gulf to Bay. Turn right at the first light. The campus will be a short way up on the left side of the street.

Take US 19 South to Drew. Turn right onto Drew. Turn left at the first light. The campus will be on the right.

Hillel USF

Jewish Student Center

13101 Sycamore Drive

Take Fletcher (east) to 50th Street and turn right. Take the first right onto Holly Drive then the first left on Sycamore. Building is the second on the left.

Parking –Lots of parking in front of the building. There is no charge at night.