Michiana Jewish Film Festival 2012

The second annual Michiana Jewish Film Festival was a fabulous hit! We're already planning for the third annual film festival in 2013, so contact us if you're interesting in coordinating, participating or supporting Jewish film.

David (2011)

Monday, May 14, 2012, 5:00 pm

Directed by Joel Fendelman
As the son of the Imam of the local Brooklyn mosque, Daud has to juggle the high expectations of his father and his feelings of isolation and difference from his peers in the Muslim community. Through an innocent act of good faith, Daud inadvertently befriends a group of Jewish boys who mistake him as a fellow classmate at their Orthodox school and is drawn into a complicated dilemma inspired by youthful deceit and the best of intentions.
Not Rated (Recommended for ages 10 and up), 80 minutes

Sponsored by The Mark Dine & Tap and Uptown Kitchen.

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness (2011)

Monday, May 14, 2012, 7:30 pm

Directed by Joseph Dorman
This riveting portrait of the great writer whose stories became the basis of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof tells the tale of a rebellious genius who created an entirely new literature. Plumbing the depths of a Jewish world locked in crisis and on the cusp of profound change, he captured that world with brilliant humor. Sholem Aleichem was not just a witness to the creation of a new modern Jewish identity, but one of the very men who shaped it.
Not Rated, 93 minutes

Sponsored by The Mark Dine & Tap and Uptown Kitchen.

Nicky's Family (2011)

Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 5:00 pm

Directed by Matej Minac
Nicholas Winston organized the rescue of 669 Czechoslovakian children prior to the outbreak of World War II. Now over 100 years old, Winston never spoke of his deeds for over 50 years yet the legacy of his family has spread around the world through efforts to better the lives of children in Asia and Africa.
Not Rated, 96 minutes

Sponsored by the University of Notre Dame Holocaust Project.

The Human Resources Manager (2010)

Tuesday, May 15, 2012, 7:30 pm

Directed by Eran Riklis
The Human Resources Manager of Jerusalem’s largest bakery is in trouble. When one of his employees is killed in a suicide bombing, the bakery is accused of indifference and he is sent to the victim's hometown in Romania to make amends. Far from home on a mission to honor a woman he didn't even know, he fights to regain his company's reputation and possibly his own humanity.
Not Rated, 103 minutes
English, Hebrew and Romanian with English subtitles

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.

Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray (2011)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 5:00 pm

Directed by Jonathan Gruber

During the American Civil War, some 10,000 Jews served on both sides of the battlefield. While confederate Jews cited the Torah to justify slavery, abolitionists established synagogues as stops on the Underground Railroad. This documentary chronicles a remarkable series of events including Grant’s infamous order to expel Jews from the South and the story of Lincoln’s Jewish doctor who served as a Union spy.
Not Rated, 86 minutes

Sponsored by WNIT Public Television Center for Public Media.

In Darkness (2011)

Wednesday, May 16, 2012, 7:00 pm

Directed by Agnieszka Holland
Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film from acclaimed director Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa), In Darkness is based on the true story of a sewer worker and petty thief in Nazi-occupied Poland who agrees to hide a group of Jews trying to escape the ghetto in the labyrinth of the city sewers. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected in this extraordinary story of survival.
Rated R, 145 minutes

Polish, Ukrainian, Yiddish and German with English subtitles

Sponsored by the University of Notre Dame Holocaust Project.

Foreign Letters (2012)

Thursday, May 17, 2012, 5:00 pm

Directed by Ela Their

Ellie, an Israeli immigrant living in the US, is lonely and homesick. Life brightens when she meets Thuy, a Vietnamese refugee her age. Trust slowly builds, the girls become inseparable but they eventually hurt and betray each other. Set in the early 1980s and based on the filmmaker's own experience of immigration, Foreign Letters features the music of iconic Israeli musician Chava Alberstein.
Not Rated, 100 minutes
English, Hebrew & Vietnamese w/ English subtitles

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.

Footnote (2011)

Thursday, May 17, 2012, 7:30 pm

Directed by Joseph Cedar

Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Footnote is the comedic tale of a rivalry between father and son, both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. When the father learns that he is to be receive a prestigious award, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. Meanwhile, his son is forced to choose between the advancement of his own career at the expense of his father's glory.
Rated PG, 103 minutes

Hebrew with English subtitles

Sponsored by the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.