By Emily K. Alhadeff, Assistant Editor, JTNews
When you think about the characters of Jewish arts and culture, they pretty much come down to heroes, hooligans, and comedians.
This, at least, is the idea behind this year’s Seattle Jewish Film Festival theme: The good, the bad, and the funny.
“In a way, we can look at the good, the bad, the funny, and all the “˜yetzer hara’ of Jewish life,” said festival director Pamela Lavitt. “We’re not looking at the dour or the morose or the sad.”
This year’s festival opens Saturday night, March 1, with a Dutch adaptation of Israeli novelist David Grossman’s “The Zigzag Kid,” a charming coming-of-age tale of a Bar Mitzvah boy’s hijinks on a quest to solve a family mystery and prove himself. Over the course of the festival, audiences will be introduced to the illustrious products of the “comedy boot camp” of the Catskills in “When Comedy Went to School,” the Jewish music aficionados who aided the anti-Semitic composer Richard Wagner’s career (“Wagner’s Jews”), Israeli and Palestinian stereotypes in the hit Israeli TV show “Arab Labor,” and a French couple scheming to help Soviet refuseniks pierce the iron curtain (“Friends from France”).
That’s just scratching the surface.
Struck by the “preponderance of Jewish comedians” and yet leaning toward a Jewish gangster theme, Lavitt credits the theme’s development to a phenomenal team of volunteers.
“You can actually build a theme around an idea,” she said.
As in years past, several screenings will be accompanied by discussions and events. Opening night will feature a dessert reception by Tom Douglas, and the annual Matzoh Momma brunch returns with a rousing klezmer dance party on Sun., March 2. Later that afternoon, a panel discussion with four of the world’s preeminent Sephardic scholars will follow “The Longest Journey: The Last Days of the Jews of Rhodes,” along with a traditional echar lashon (coffee klatch).
“Hands down, without a doubt, nobody should miss the opening night film, and I mean nobody,” raved Lavitt about “The Zigzag Kid.” “It has the good, the bad, and the funny. It has levity, it has humor, it has star power.”
Of notable mention in the category of “good” is “Brave Miss World,” said Lavitt, about Miss Israel 1998, who was raped at knifepoint and is now a global social justice activist.
Lavitt is also excited about the closing night film and event, the documentary “Road to Eden,” which follows musician Dan Nichols on a Sukkot tour through the Deep South. Director Doug Passon and producer Jordan Passon will be in attendance, as will Nichols himself — for a concert after the film.
“People who haven’t heard him will be blown away,” said Lavitt.
Lavitt is as excited for the festival as she is for a new festival venue: The brand new Stroum Jewish Community Center theater, which opens to the public this weekend.
“You’re in a real theater experience now,” she said. “This year’s festival is about that….We can celebrate and create opportunities to bring people together through the arts, through cinema, all year round.”
Lavitt has plans to expand the festival from a 10-day, head-exploding experience into a yearlong venture with combined food, film, and social events.
“In Yiddish it’s “˜forshpeis,'” said Lavitt of this year’s festival. “It’s a small taste. It’s an appetizer. The festival has packed so much into 10 days.”