Writer and director Adam Bogoch, left, and VTT Alumni Fund chair David Bogoch at the première of Vancouver Talmud Torah Onward: The 100-Year History on Sept. 17. For those who missed the sold-out screening at the Norman and Annette Rothstein Theatre, the documentary can be watched online, via talmudtorah.com/vtt-onward-100-year-history or on YouTube. (photo by Jennifer Shecter-Balin)
Category: TV & Film
Help finish new thriller
Richard Harmon stars in Crypto, written and directed by Jon Silverberg. (photo from Red Castle Films)
Enjoy watching a psychological thriller? Well, now you can help make one. At least, finance one. Starring Vancouver actor Richard Harmon – most recently John Murphy in the Warner Brothers series The 100 – and written and directed by local Jewish community member Jon Silverberg, the feature film Crypto has been shot but needs funding for the finishing touches.
“Crypto is my first feature film, and has been a struggle to complete on personal and private resources so far – this is why we’re now turning to crowdfunding to help finish it!” wrote Silverberg in an email to the Jewish Independent.
“We’ve shot and edited the film, but need the completion funds for VFX [visual effects], sound design and our festival and marketing rollout,” he said in an interview. “We have some really awesome perks to give back to fans in exchange for their donations – from a production diary, to merchandise, to an advance screening gala planned for early 2018.”
The film is described as “a psychological thriller, which follows drug-addicted photojournalist Jake (played by Harmon) who, after taking a job at a wilderness lodge, sets up a darkroom where the photos he develops begin to reveal unsettling apparitions of the future.”
“I enjoy watching lighter films, but the stories that I revisit in my mind long after I watch them are the ones that explore the darker more mysterious aspects of life – especially inside the human mind,” said Silverberg. “In Crypto, we explore the effects of isolation on an already troubled soul, and even the fantastical elements of the story are as much an allegory for the main character’s internal struggle,” as they are entertaining.
The crowdfunding press release talks about the film being Harmon’s “passion project,” but it is also Silverberg’s. “It’s been a longtime goal of mine to direct a feature film and I felt strongly about developing my own material,” he said. “I had been writing the script for Crypto for nearly three years by the time the cameras started rolling.”
Filming took place in Port McNeil, on Vancouver Island, over 11 days in February 2017, with a crew totaling 16, said Silverberg. “My producer, Andy Hodgson, was the other main driving force behind the film, and also served as cinematographer and camera operator on set.”
In the press release, Hodgson notes, “We need about $20,000 to finish the film and get it out to international festivals, which, comparatively speaking, is a very small amount in a world of multimillion dollar movies.”
Born in Montreal and raised on Vancouver Island, Silverberg moved to Vancouver in the early 2000s for film school, “and also for the overall film industry infrastructure. There wasn’t much happening for film on Vancouver Island at the time,” he said.
Silverberg is co-owner of Red Castle Films with producer/cinematographer Hodgson and business manager Nolan Smith. His bio on the site notes that he “grew up fascinated by cinema, and began to shoot photos and develop them in the darkroom by age 6. He attended Capilano University’s film program in 2003, and went on to shoot hundreds of episodes of internationally broadcast documentary television – from the waters of Alaska to the jungles of Mexico – before he settled in Metro Vancouver. More recently, Jon premièred his short film Disappeared at the 2015 San Francisco Indie Fest and is currently preparing to shoot his first feature film Crypto, a sci-fi/thriller set in the Haida Gwaii.”
Silverberg shared with the Independent that, not only was he raised in a semi-observant Jewish home, but that his company’s name, Red Castle Films, and its logo “was chosen in honour of the regional flag of my family’s former home in Poland.”
Crypto is scheduled for release in 2018 through festivals and other distribution. To see a trailer of the film, visit redcastlefilms.com/project/features-crypto. For more information and to donate – perhaps becoming a producer yourself – visit crypto-movie.com.
A mythical Haida love story
In The Mountain of SGaana, sea hunter Naa-Naa-Simgat is abducted by a killer whale and his lover, Kuuga Kuns, must try to save him. (image from National Film Board of Canada)
One of the highlights at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival will be the animated short The Mountain of SGaana, presented by the National Film Board of Canada.
In The Mountain of SGaana, Haida filmmaker Christopher Auchter tells the tale of two lovers, sea hunter Naa-Naa-Simgat and Kuuga Kuns. When Naa-Naa-Simgat is abducted by a killer whale (SGanna, in Haida), Kuuga Kuns must negotiate a supernatural undersea world in order to save him. If she doesn’t succeed, they will both become part of the spirit world forever.
The film starts in the present-day, with a thoroughly modern fisherman, Skipper, ignoring all that is around him; his focus being solely on his cellphone, until a small mouse catches his attention and, literally, knits the supernatural tale. Auchter notes in an interview on the NFB website that SGaana also means “supernatural” in the Haida language.
“The Haida are an indigenous people whose island territories lie off the West Coast of Canada and in the southern regions of Alaska,” explains Auchter in the interview. “The modern name for the archipelago is Haida Gwaii, which best translates to “people’s island.” There was a time when the islands were called Xaadlaa gwaayee, which means ‘coming out of concealment,’ appropriately named for its location in the world’s largest remaining temperate rainforest.
“Haida Gwaii was formerly named the Queen Charlotte Islands, after the ship of a British explorer who landed there in 1787. The lands of the Haida nation were re-named in 2009.”
Auchter first read the story told in The Mountain of SGaana years ago in an anthology. In subsequent research, he encountered various versions of the tale, but all contained the same fundamental elements.
In addition to directing the 10-minute short, Auchter co-wrote the film with Annie Reid and the film’s vivid and magical animation was created by Auchter, Tara Barker, Marco Li and Sitji Chou. Jewish community member Michael Mann is listed as compositor, VFX and after-effects animator.
“Chris Auchter designed and created this beautiful world of The Mountain of SGaana, which had this beautiful Haida iconography and told a really wonderful story,” Mann said in a phone interview with the NFB. “What I did is, I took this 2-D animation and basically added lighting, camera moves and visual effects. Say, I get a flat image of water, I make it feel more watery and rippley.”
Mann also colour-graded the film. He explained that certain parts of it needed to look aged, as the film contrasts an older world with a more modern one. He said, “My reading of the story is, it’s a modern-day character [Skipper] who’s lost connection with his stories…. For a long time, they’re very separate and by the end they connect.”
And Mann also had to unite the characters that inhabit the different worlds. “One thing that’s really fun,” he said, “is playing with sunlight and darkness and rain. And all these mythical characters, how do you make them feel they’re all in the same world?”
He said, “I think of myself as a visual sandwich maker sometimes because, basically, someone gives me one layer of the sandwich and then I add all those other layers up to it so that it looks like it’s all one meal, like it’s all one world.”
Mann mostly worked on The Mountain of SGaana remotely from his studio on Salt Spring Island, but came to the NFB offices in Vancouver at the end for an intense 36-hour session with Auchter to finalize all the film’s effects.
Mann’s work as a visual storyteller – using animation, illustration and graphic design – has been featured in the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, on Nickelodeon, on PBS, in advertising campaigns, in documentaries, in video games, at Ontario’s Stratford Festival, the list goes on.
“Whether working on documentaries, commercial projects, government initiatives or collaborations with other artists,” reads his bio, Mann “loves using creativity to translate cultural concepts to new audiences.”
And The Mountain of SGaana certainly communicates, if only in a small way, something about Haida culture.
“I used Haida art to help frame the action and highlight key moments in the story, and to give those important moments an exclamation mark,” explains Auchter in the online interview. “I also use the Haida art as symbolism: at the beginning of the film, the character of Skipper is surrounded by multiple frames featuring various scenes from his environment. He ignores what’s going on around him, and doesn’t engage with his world. These scenes that surround Skipper are framed with black lines. This works in contrast with the other more complex multi-panel Haida formline shots we see throughout the course of the film. Skipper doesn’t get this more complex visual treatment until later in the story when he actively begins to engage with the world around him. His biggest moment comes when he throws the rope to Kuuga Kuns and Naa-Naa-Simgat and pulls them in. This symbolizes that he is pulling his culture closer to him.”
The Mountain of SGaana won the Young Audiences 6-12 Official Competition at this year’s Ottawa International Animation Festival and was an official selection for ImagineNATIVE 2017 and the Vancouver International Film Festival. It screens at VIFF on Oct. 5, 9:15 p.m., and Oct. 12, 3:15 p.m., at International Village 8, as part of the Strangers in Strange Lands shorts program. For tickets and the full festival lineup, visit viff.org. The festival runs Sept. 28-Oct. 13.
The making of VTT Onward
Adam Bogoch and Cynthia Ramsay at Main Street Brewery, where they discussed, among other things, Adam’s documentary film about Vancouver Talmud Torah. (photo by Adam Bogoch)
As I watched filmmaker and writer Adam Bogoch briefly consider jaywalking across Main Street to meet me at Brassneck Brewery, I held my breath. Thankfully, he decided to cross at the lights and, together, all body parts intact, we headed into the crowded tasting room and found two places at the bar.
We had lots to talk about that sunny, humid day in July – he was excited to share with me, and Jewish Independent readers, news of a commercial project he was just completing. The final product, Vancouver Talmud Torah Onward: The 100-Year History, will première on Sept. 17 at Rothstein Theatre. While the event has sold out, there will be other opportunities for community members to see it.
“… there have always been community-minded individuals who have been ready to step forward and guide the Talmud Torah onward, and keep the light of Jewish learning alive.”
Adam chose to frame the work with an article from the Jewish Western Bulletin, the predecessor of the JI. Written by Harry Wolfe, the short item appeared in the Sept. 2, 1948, issue of the JWB, which was dedicated to the imminent opening of the then-new building at 26th Avenue and Oak Street, and featured a lengthy history of the school’s first 30 years. What is interesting about Wolfe’s quote – and Adam’s decision to use it – is that it recognized both the numerous (recurring) problems that faced the school, as well as the fact that “there have always been community-minded individuals who have been ready to step forward and guide the Talmud Torah onward, and keep the light of Jewish learning alive.” Hence, the name of the film.
“It’s extremely challenging to create a documentary on an institution that doesn’t feel like a puff piece. Honestly, that was the first obstacle to overcome,” said Adam in an email interview. “I have my own personal perspectives on religion and community politics that I didn’t want clashing with the mission of the movie. So, the only way I could get around this was to locate the heart, that something that we can all relate to.
“Luckily, this was almost instantaneous. While going through the archives, I found a superb article in the Jewish Western Bulletin … written by Harry Wolfe in 1948…. It perfectly encapsulated the trials and tribulations of the school and how the success or failure of the institution was, and still is, solely on the backs of the community. It also stated that, despite major setbacks, there have always been those willing to put their tucheses on the line for VTT.
“The reasons they did this were numerous and we explore some of them in the movie,” he said. “But, even when I went to VTT, there was a love that pervaded the halls of the school. No matter where you fell on the religious, financial or political spectrum, there was a place for you. That’s an institution worth talking about and one worth fighting for.
“That’s not to say that it’s perfect. Nothing is, and the movie doesn’t shy away from that, which, aside from being a vital part of storytelling, is part of the fun of it. But, hopefully, the film helps to keep the school (and the community) on the right track.”
It certainly kept Adam on track, making “sifting through hundreds of hours of footage far easier. If it didn’t fall under the umbrella idea, it got cut.”
The film project was funded, said Adam, “by the generosity of Syd Belzberg and by multiple donations made to the VTT Alumni Fund.” It took more than three years to complete – and that was after years of discussing the idea of a documentary. It was a concept for which his father, David Bogoch, in his capacity as alumni chair, advocated “with many different boards.”
“Frankly, it took awhile for excitement to build,” said Adam. “At first, only my dad, who’s a wealth of information on the topic, truly saw a story worth telling. By the time we knew the school would be celebrating its 100th anniversary, things really began to take shape. Past board members and individuals in the administration embraced my dad’s ideas and he convinced me to helm the project.”
In addition to funding the documentary, the VTT Alumni Fund has been financing the digitization of the archives, said Adam.
“I spent the first two years of this project doing research. This included the expansive VTT archives, the Jewish Western Bulletin, the Jewish Museum and Archives of B.C. and Rozanne Feldman Kent’s book The Vancouver Talmud Torah: 1913-1959 and Beyond.”
While he did most of the legwork himself, he received “some significant assists” from his dad. “As well,” he said, “I was lucky enough to work with a small crew on certain days. So much visual content came from [VTT’s] Jennifer Shecter-Balin, and she simply must be praised.” He gave a lion’s share of the credit to film editor Thomas Affolter. “The broad strokes of the project may have been due to my experience as a writer,” said Adam, “but he has a director’s mind that added a real sense of professionalism and cleanliness that is immediately evident on screen.”
The decision of who to interview was a collaboration between Adam and his dad. “We had suggestions given to us by [VTT head of school] Cathy Lowenstein, as well as by staff members, but most of the 46 faces featured were our decision,” said Adam.
“… we have an all-star lineup of community members of all different ages, occupations, experiences and perspectives. It’s like the Ocean’s Eleven of the Jewish community.”
In his 1948 article, Wolfe wrote, “We have attempted to give credit where it is due, but many will have to remain unmentioned because of modesty or because research could not uncover names.” Adam said he faced the same challenge and is expecting to receive “a few remarks on missing faces. But, it’s important to note that some people were unavailable or had no interest in being on camera. The movie also couldn’t be unbearably long, so we had to cap at a certain number of individuals. But, we have an all-star lineup of community members of all different ages, occupations, experiences and perspectives. It’s like the Ocean’s Eleven of the Jewish community.”
This is Adam’s favourite aspect of the documentary, “that it provides voices from all corners of the community. Sure, we could have always featured more. There will always be factions that we didn’t include. However, we have 46 featured faces. Each with their own perspective. Some of which are in conflict with one another. But all of them are shooting for the same goal – a prosperous Jewish day school that welcomes everyone.”
Adam gave the school credit for its hands-off approach to the content. “Some of these opinions [in the film] are not what the school endorses. But they understand that they are just opinions. Informed discussion is vital for growth, and we can’t shy away from it. At the end of the day, we had very little interference from the school; and what little we did have made the project stronger, kinder and still just as honest.”
He added, “The board and admin have been so supportive of this journey, and they must be acknowledged for their bravery in embracing something that wasn’t completely shiny and beautiful. That tells me that they’re confident in the quality of their school.
“Another thing that interested me about VTT Onward,” he said, “was that I was honouring my family roots. My grandfather, Dr. Abraham (Al) Bogoch was a giant in the community, especially when it came to VTT. My dad has followed in his footsteps in a way that I think exceeds my grandfather’s influence. My connection is different, but this is one way that I can contribute to something that’s been integral to the Bogoch family.”
Adam himself is a VTT alumnus – class of 2005. By the time I first met him, he had moved to the next level of his Jewish education and was at King David High School. The reason for that meeting, in 2009, was the screening of his first feature film, Avoid Confrontation – he was 17!
From April 2010 through March 2011, we ran a series in the JI that that followed the production process of his second feature film, Complexity, from concept to completion. And I interviewed Adam in July 2011 about the short film Eye of the Beholder, co-written by David Kaye and Vanessa Parent, which he directed.
When we were organizing our beer-tasting and informal interview this summer, I was shocked how long it had been since I’d written about his work. It wasn’t like we hadn’t kept in touch. We get together every so often to catch up on each other’s lives, though generally over coffee and pastry.
The idea for the beer-tasting interview originated in the spring, while we were at Thomas Haas café on West Broadway. There, Adam made an offhand comment about having to come back another time to take a proper photo of the cappuccino (it might have been a latte). Lo and behold, he writes about coffee for the food blog Hidden Gems Vancouver.
While he initiated that blogging gig, and does enjoy content writing immensely – blogs, websites, ghost-writing – he said, “ultimately, I do it to supplement my other works.”
His resumé includes “writing and rewriting film outlines and treatments, as well as penning works for the visions of others,” but his passion remains screenwriting.
“Writing and directing two feature films as a teenager, before I could truly comprehend what story really is, was the best training for what I do now. But it’s a constant learning experience,” he said. “I’ve also been lucky to have been trained by some of Hollywood’s most influential writers and professors. Experiences I’ll never forget.”
At Brassneck, we discussed how to construct a plot, as well as successful and not-so-successful adaptations of books to the screen. Our beer choices oddly echoed our personalities, with me tending toward the darker beers, only accidentally ordering the aptly named Klutz Kolsch, a blonde ale, and Adam ordering the likes of Hibiscus Wit (which he has in abundance), Wingman (I’m sure he makes a great one) and Sunny Disposition (which he also has, both in temperament and in looks, with his broad smile and ginger locks).
As we took our interview and beer-tasting to Main Street Brewing on East 7th Avenue – and had some much-needed food – we talked about VTT Onward, the Jewish Independent’s upcoming Chai Celebration (don’t make any other plans for the night of Dec. 6!), more about film adaptations and a bit about the challenges we each face being self-employed in the arts.
“At the end of the day,” said Adam, “I’ve picked a profession that is highly competitive and doesn’t operate in any way like ‘mainstream’ careers. It’s a constant barrage of rejection and uncertainty. But I’ve been extremely fortunate to have signed with a tornado of a manager, Liz Hodgson. She’s been responsible for the careers of some notable A-list talent, both in front of and behind the camera. She’s been mentoring me consistently – one of the most common ways for writers to break into the industry on a significant level – and is currently representing my next two projects, one of which I’ve been rewriting for over six years.”
This latter script has almost been made four times, and has received multiple offers, said Adam. “I’ve taken none. This is because there’s always been something that has kept me from releasing it. That, or the deals haven’t been right.
“Recently, I’ve been working with my manager on a rewrite that will hopefully allow me to let it go…. Without over-talking it, Between Me (current title) is about a teenager battling his three personality projections who seek to push and pull him towards utterly catastrophic directions.”
We decided that Brassneck’s Bivouac Bitter could possibly represent the teenager’s negative id, its Raspberry Changeling (which was sour, not sweet) his super ego. To describe his whole character, Adam thought Main Street’s Old Knights Pale might be appropriate. We found the teen’s positive id at 33 Acres Brewing on East 8th Avenue, in Nirvana, appropriately enough.
Despite having a little more to eat at 33 Acres, the beer-tasting was having an effect on me. After more discussion about life, the VTT film screening, which was then only in the planning stages, and the JI, which Adam described at one point as the “printed record of history,” we parted ways. He was decidedly more peppy, but I slowly made my way safely home. When I looked at my watch, I couldn’t believe that six hours had gone by.
A real tête-à-tête had obviously been overdue and the beer-tasting a good idea – at least for deep conversation. As for an interview, not so much. While I took the odd note, all of the material for this article comes from an email interview after the fact.
I will next see Adam at the Sept. 17 première of VTT Onward. Even though I’ve seen it, I’m looking forward to it. I’m not the only one who was impressed by the rough cut. A few others have seen it.
“I’m blown away by the response,” said Adam. “I had no clue it would be received as well as it has been so far. I’m now confident that the community at large will find something in it that moves them and, therefore, I’m thrilled to be able to share it.
An Israeli internet hit
Renny Grinshpan’s videos have gained quite an audience. (photo from Renny Grinshpan)
Born and raised in Toronto, Renny Grinshpan is the daughter of an Israeli-born dad and a Toronto-born mom. Her sister, Eden, works as a host on the food scene in Canada and the United States and recently hosted Top Chef Canada. For her part, Grinshpan is a bit of a celebrity herself – in Israel.
After finishing high school in Toronto, Grinshpan moved to New York City, where she studied history at New York University before heading to Columbia University to pursue her master’s in journalism. After six years in New York, she moved to Tel Aviv to be with her Israeli partner, Hadar Amar, and they still live there. This past June, the couple was married.
“Hadar and I met through a mutual friend at a bar in Tel Aviv,” she said. “We now live together in Tel Aviv. He works in strategic consulting.”
Grinshpan has been in Tel Aviv for about three years. “When I came here,” she said, “I worked as a content writer for Tross Creative House for a year. My boss there, Yaniv Tross, encouraged me to quit and start on-camera work, so I did. He cast me in my first video – a crowdfunding video for a start-up product that works against period cramps (Livia). Since then, I’ve been working as a freelance host, content creator and actor.”
Grinshpan became known in Israel’s comedy scene for her role on HaIsraeliot (the Israeli Girls), a Facebook page with female Israeli comedians, including Leah Lev and Meital Avni.
“I don’t do live shows,” said Grinshpan. “I tried stand-up comedy and realized it’s the scariest thing ever … and I am no adrenaline junkie!”
In her Facebook videos, Grinshpan delves into different aspects of Israeli culture from a Canadian perspective. As a relatively new olah (immigrant), these observations come naturally for her.
“I think my main audience is Israeli women,” she said. “It makes sense to me that Israelis are my biggest audience, because I think everyone enjoys hearing about themselves the most, especially from an outsider’s perspective.”
Grinshpan gained experience in video during her journalism studies at Columbia, where she focused on video journalism and learned how to film, edit and build a narrative visually.
“I made several short documentary-style videos that year and the year following,” she said. “When I worked at Tross, I got experience writing creatively for the first time – writing scripts for product and crowdfunding videos for start-ups.
“When I started freelancing after Tross, I worked not only as an actor and host, but also continued working as a content writer and videographer behind the scenes. I also worked as a model and voiceover actor – anything to earn a living in the creative video realm!”
Grinshpan has spent some time as a visitor in Vancouver and had much good to say about the experience. “I love Vancouver!” she said. “Thank you for giving me some of the best times!
“Being a tourist in Vancouver made me feel like I’m really athletic, which could not be farther from the truth! I found that, in touring the city, I was biking through Stanley Park (it’s a forest!), hiking up a waterfall in North Van, trying out long-boarding for the first time and canoeing again (like in my childhood). I was so active just by being there, which, again, is not reflective of my standard state.”
Looking ahead, Grinshpan said she dreams of co-hosting a food and travel talk show across Israel or Canada with her big sister one day.
To follow or see more of Grinshpan, visit facebook.com/heyitsrenny or check out youtube.com/watch?v=d9pPtsFplaI and youtube.com/watch?v=nYKvpVlOVmU.
Rebeca Kuropatwa is a Winnipeg freelance writer.
Difficult to be a good father
Menashe Lustig (Menashe), director Joshua Z. Weinstein and Ruben Niborski (Rieven). (photo by Federica Valabrega courtesy of Mongrel Media)
On a sidewalk crowded with people moving at the pace of a typical New York City day, nobody stands out. Eventually, a man appears in the back of the frame who gradually attracts our attention. There’s nothing extraordinary about him except he’s a bulky man, and he’s labouring more than anyone else in the summer heat. He’s wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, black vest and tzitzit, and our initial impression is of an overgrown child. It’s the perfect introduction to Menashe, and Menashe.
We have the sense that writer-director Joshua Z. Weinstein’s camera could have followed any face in the crowd. That’s an unusual feeling to have in a fiction film, but there are more than eight million stories in the naked city, after all. The effect, though, is to imbue Menashe, from the outset, with the requisite naturalism for a riveting, Yiddish-language character study of a working-class Chassid on the margins of both his religious community and society at large.
The motor of the film is Menashe’s ham-fisted determination to raise his adolescent son, Rieven, by himself in the months following his wife’s premature death. His tenacity is understandable, for the boy and Jewish songs and scripture are Menashe’s only interests.
The religious leader, the ruv, while not unsympathetic, maintains that Rieven be raised in a “proper home” with a father and a mother. Given the unhappiness of his first, arranged marriage, Menashe (beautifully played by Menashe Lustig) is in no hurry to remarry. So, the boy lives with Menashe’s annoyingly self-assured brother-in-law, Eizik (the excellent Yoel Weisshaus), and his family in a nice home instead of at Menashe’s no-frills walk-up apartment. Rieven doesn’t mind, but it’s a continuing affront to Menashe’s self-respect and sense of responsibility.
Menashe is an exception among the many films about Orthodox Jews in that it does not involve a tug-of-war between tradition and the modern world, or the conflict between secularism and faith. The central dynamic in Menashe is class, which gives the viewer an unusual angle from which to view the ultra-Orthodox community. This film scarcely visits a yeshivah and the Chassidim with the long coats like Eizik, which are so familiar to us, are supporting characters – although it is plain that they are at the centre of community life.
Menashe, for his part, can’t get no respect. He works in a grocery market, a job with no status (regardless of how exceedingly moral he is) and low pay. There’s a picaresque scene where he’s enticed into having a 40-ouncer of cheap beer in the back of the store with a couple of Hispanic co-workers. Though the language barrier prevents Menashe from bonding with them past a certain point, he seems more comfortable in his own skin in their company than with the Jews in his circle and their judgments and expectations.
Our sympathies are with Menashe, of course, as they’d be with any single parent struggling to make ends meet and get a little ahead. But he’s far from perfect, and that smart move by Weinstein is what elevates the picture to the level of pathos.
Menashe is short-tempered, stubborn, perpetually late, fond of the occasional drink(s) and always playing catch-up. He’s the last to recognize that his character flaws, along with his circumstances, make him the biggest obstacle to establishing a stable life with Rieven.
Menashe is rife with the small truths of life – every father disappoints his son at some point, and vice versa – and the amusing, unexpected moments that occur every day. It’s a warm, generous film that doesn’t shy from sentimentality but doesn’t insult its audience, either. Ultimately, it introduces us to a memorable character whose resilience is, in its way, inspiring. Menashe is a small film, but it’s a special one.
Menashe opened Aug. 11 at Fifth Avenue in Vancouver. It is rated PG for thematic elements, and is in Yiddish with subtitles.
Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
An accidental journey
Salvador Litvak was in Vancouver for a Shabbaton at the Kollel last month. (photo from Salvador Litvak)
At a Kollel Shabbaton last month featuring Accidental Talmudist and filmmaker Salvador Litvak, no one was asking that age-old Jewish question, “When do we eat?” In fact, on the night of June 23, during the first of three sessions with Litvak, more than 100 attendees sat spellbound as he shared the love story of his Hungarian grandmother Magda, who survived the Holocaust in the Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Litvak, who was born in Chile and now lives in Los Angeles, recalled his grandparents’ story and how Magda’s death led to an epiphany that jump-started his spiritual journey. According to Litvak, witnessing his grandmother passing to the next world, where she was welcomed by his grandfather Imre (who was murdered in the Holocaust), was one of the seminal experiences of his life and it eventually resulted in his becoming an “accidental Talmudist,” with many detours along the way.
Litvak revealed his story in stages over the next two days at the Kollel, which brought him to Vancouver as part of its “focus on creating and promoting exciting and meaningful, social, cultural and educational programs that invite people to experience Judaism … in an inclusive, comfortable, joyful and nonjudgmental environment,” said Kollel director Rabbi Shmuel Yeshayahu.
Over the course of the weekend, Litvak shared a drash about the Torah portion, led an interactive workshop on Sunday about discovering one’s life’s mission and traced the stages in his life that led him to create the Accidental Talmudist blog, which attracts more than one million readers (Jews and non-Jews). He also spoke about how he came to embrace his Jewish and Hispanic roots.
Litvak’s journey has been an unconventional one. In fact, during the Sunday workshop, he jokingly claimed that “smoking pot got him into Harvard” because, after the incident, his father forced him to become a runner, which led to his becoming a champion cyclist. These extracurricular activities, said Litvak, helped him get into Harvard, where he took pre-med courses but ended up at New York University Law School. When he wasn’t in the classroom, he spent time in Greenwich Village. “I was a law student by day and a poet warrior by night,” he said.
Going back to his childhood, he said, “I was born in Santiago, Chile, that’s how I ended up with such a crazy name as Salvador Litvak, which is very similar to Jesus Goldberg.”
Like most kids, he was concerned about fitting in, despite several disadvantages. “I already had foreign parents, I was too tall, my hair was bright red, unruly, a mop, and there was no way I was going to fit in,” he said. So, while he agreed with his parents’ plan for him to go to Harvard to become a doctor, he made a decision in Grade 3 to use his middle name Alex instead of Salvador because “it made him feel more American.” It wasn’t until attending a Latino Students Association annual black tie gala at NYU that he would reclaim his Latino heritage.
Litvak had not attended any of the organization’s prior events because he had only felt nominally Hispanic. He attended this one with his girlfriend on a lark because he could wear his tux and get a free meal. When he found out, to his horror, that he would have to make a speech at the gala, he thought of leaving, but then realized that “all of the events of my life had actually coalesced into this moment for a reason.”
He seized the moment and shared with the audience how he’d been passing for 17 years as a white-bread American, and vowed to use his Spanish name, Salvador, from that day forward. Even though he wasn’t plugged into Judaism during his NYU days, this reclamation would be the first step for him to also reclaim his Jewish identity. “I let that moment be a key moment in my life,” he said, “because I knew that G-d was speaking to me and was saying to me, be who you are; you can’t do anything in this world if you aren’t who you really are.”
Litvak graduated, and practised corporate law for a short time before abandoning that career (much to the chagrin of his father) to become a filmmaker. This led to another milestone in his Jewish journey – producing and directing what is now a holiday comedy classic, the story of a Passover seder gone awry entitled When Do We Eat?, starring the late Jack Klugman in his final film role, as well as Lesley Ann Warren, Max Greenfield and Ben Feldman.
By his own admission, When Do We Eat? – which was realized with the help of his wife Nina and his Vancouver cousin Horatio – is a “very irreverent and raucous movie.” Even though the movie, which is about the “fastest seder in the West,” had a deep Jewish message based on sparks of kabbalah and Chassidut, it was panned by major media like the New York Times and Roger Ebert as being anti-Jewish. Nonetheless, word-of-mouth led to the film becoming a cult classic and a Passover tradition for many Jews around the world.
While Litvak had a bar mitzvah, he wasn’t particularly connected to his Jewish roots until the day he walked into a bookstore called 613 – The Mitzvah Store in the Pico Robertson district of Los Angeles and picked up a book called Berachos. It led him on the next leg of the spiritual journey that had begun with the passing of his grandmother.
He learned from the clerk at the bookstore that he had picked up the first book of the Talmud on a special day. The Talmud is read by many Jews all over the world as part of a worldwide program called Daf Yomi (literally, “Page of the Day”). It takes seven-and-a-half years to read the whole Talmud and Litvak had bought Book One on Day One of the program. He decided that this was not a coincidence and embarked on a seven-and-a-half-year talmudic journey, which led to one of his most memorable spiritual experiences: participating in a siyum (or concluding ceremony) at MetLife Stadium in New York with 93,000 Jews.
So, picking up that book of Talmud “accidentally” at a bookstore in Los Angeles set Litvak on a journey that inspired him to establish the Accidental Talmudist blog, which features Jewish wisdom and humour, and music from Jewish artists like Matisyahu, Peter Himmelman and the Moshav Band, as well as a live weekly show that is seen in more than 70 countries. Aside from connecting Jewish souls, the blog has introduced new fans to When Do We Eat? and there are plans for an Accidental Talmudist book and movie.
As we continue to ask that vital question, “When do we eat?”, Litvak will continue to connect Jewish souls one matzah ball and one page at a time.
For more information about the Accidental Talmudist, visit accidentaltalmudist.org. For information on the new Daf Yomi class at the Kollel, led by Asaf Cohen daily, at 8 p.m., visit thekollel.com.
David J. Litvak is a prairie refugee from the North End of Winnipeg who is a freelance writer, former Voice of Peace and Co-op Radio broadcaster and an “accidental publicist.” His articles have been published in the Forward, Globe and Mail and Seattle Post Intelligencer. His website is cascadiapublicity.com. He is not related to Salvador Litvak.
A night for your imagination
In The Fifth Season, Shadi Habib Allah focuses on Palestinian writer and teacher Ziad Khadash, who wants his students to know what freedom feels like. (photo from Vancouver Jewish Film Centre)
The Sir Jack Lyons Charitable Trust Student Film Prize is awarded annually to two students from Jerusalem film schools. Selected by a jury, the winners receive a monetary prize and the opportunity to present their films and meet industry professionals in Canada. This year, Shadi Habib Allah and Alex Klexber are coming to Vancouver and Toronto with their award-winning short films.
The event Celebrate Jerusalem, hosted by the Jerusalem Foundation with the Vancouver Jewish Film Centre, will take place at Congregation Beth Israel on May 8, 7 p.m. It will feature the screening of Habib Allah’s The Fifth Season and Klexber’s HaYarkon Street and a Q&A with both filmmakers. It will also feature the screening of Avi Nesher’s The Wonders, a “mystery, comedy, psychological thriller, political intrigue and romance” all rolled into one.
Born in Nazareth, Habib Allah received his bachelor’s from the Jordan University of Science and Technology, where he studied architecture. He began his studies at the Sam Spiegel Film and TV School in 2015, and the 15-minute The Fifth Season is his first-year film. In it, Palestinian writer and teacher Ziad Khadash wants his charges to know what freedom – physical and intellectual – feels like.
At first, Khadash just wants his class to be over; he has lost his enthusiasm for teaching. He asks his students at Amin al-Husseini boys school in Ramallah to write about the difference between summer and winter, not really caring what the assignment might bring. But, for whatever reason, when a student asks why there are only four seasons, not five, Khadash becomes inspired.
Having grown up in Jalazone refugee camp, Khadash knows what it means to not be free. He notes that his mother, 68, has not ever seen the sea – his students will be more fortunate. He leads them in a mini-rebellion at the school, in which they state, “We come here as a creative generation, a democratic generation, to take over the school, to take it over for a few minutes – a cultural, intellectual, creative takeover, not a violent, armed takeover.” Their demands include “no more school uniforms,” “tear down the school wall,” “a monthly field trip to the beach,” “the right to express ourselves freely in class.”
Khadash is an odd bird – for example, he doesn’t believe in marriage, as it leaves no room for the imagination – but he seems like a good person, a positive role model for his students.
About The Fifth Season, the Lyons film prize jury wrote, “The film brings to the screen a teacher and educator with a unique educational approach, which the director manages to translate into a complex and rich cinematic language. Effective editing weaves together narration with staged and illustrative scenes that represent the film’s protagonist, who wishes to release his students from the shackles of reality and thought, using unlimited imagination.
“The visual boldness, and the expression of freedom and liberty as universal values by cinematic means, indicate that a promising talent is evident in this debut film.”
Childhood is also the focus of Klexber’s four-minute film HaYarkon Street.
Born in Ukraine, Klexber is now a fourth-year animation student at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design. He moved with his parents to Israel at the age of 6 and grew up in Rishon Lezion, south of Tel Aviv. His short film recalls his younger days – with images drawn both from his memory and from his artwork of those early years.
With animation and other techniques, Klexber tries to recreate the HaYarkon Street neighbourhood of old, and it is both fun and touching to watch. Viewers will most certainly remember their own youthful sketches and wonder from where some of those ideas came.
“Klexber’s short film movingly combines the world of imagination and reality,” wrote the film prize judges. “He manages in a few minutes to create a unique world, rarely seen in Israeli cinema. With sensitivity and imagination, the director depicts a specific memory of his, but the theme and approach are universal. This is a personal story related to the Israeli experience of immigration and affinity to the place. The simple name given to the film is in fact the basis for a host of memories, ambitions and dreams.
“The prize is awarded to the film in order to encourage the director to continue exploring this world.”
According to his bio, Klexber “created his first stop-motion short, Junkyard Episodes, while attending high school and also started making live action YouTube videos with his friends that became popular in Israel.” During his army service, in his free time, he “continued making YouTube videos and animation shorts, including the short film The Paintbrush (2010), that combined live action and stop motion.” And, he “composed original music on all his videos and short films.”
Celebrate Jerusalem also features, appropriately, a film that casts the city as one of its main characters, The Wonders.
“For me, Jerusalem was a great city for film noir, for something that explored the darkest side of the human experience while trying to reach for the higher element of the human experience,” said Nesher in an interview at London, England’s 2014 Seret film festival, where The Wonders screened.
The Wonders ponders the secular – via graffiti artist and bartender Arnav – and the (un)holy – Rabbi Shmaya Knafo, the leader of a cult-like group, who is kidnapped. Among the other characters are “a hard-boiled investigator,” “a gorgeous mystery woman” and Arnav’s former girlfriend. Animation helps bring to life Arnav’s active imagination and the film blurs the lines between fact and fiction.
Celebrate Jerusalem is a free event. To register, visit vjff.org/events/event/the-wonders.
U.S.-Israel relations in Norman
Richard Gere, left, as Norman Oppenheimer and Lior Ashkenazi as Micha Eshel. In the unlikely confines of an upscale shoe store, the two characters forge a connection that will have profound ramifications. (photo by Niko Tavernise, Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics)
The marvelous tragicomedy Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer depicts an aging, desperate Jewish influence peddler who has survived in a shark-eat-minnow world via a smooth patter that blends alleged connections with half-promises.
Through manipulation, charm and luck, Norman (a poignant Richard Gere) devises a rendezvous with a minor Israeli deputy minister (Lior Ashkenazi) at loose ends in the Big Apple. In the unlikely confines of an upscale shoe store, they forge a connection that will have profound ramifications for both men – for better and for worse.
The film, which opens today, April 28, marks the first movie that acclaimed writer-director Joseph Cedar has shot in his birthplace. Cedar grew up in Israel from the age of 6, returned to New York to earn his degree in film at New York University and established himself as one of Israel’s finest filmmakers with Time of Favour, Campfire and a pair of Academy Award nominees for best foreign language film, Beaufort and Footnote.
The soft-spoken Cedar allows that he’s exceptionally familiar with both sides of the complicated dynamic between Israel and American Jews.
“It’s a messy relationship, which, from my point of view, justifies the film,” he said. “There’s something fascinating about what Israelis think of Americans and what they expect from Americans, and how Americans view Israel, how they view Israelis and what Israel is for their identity. All these things are a big part of my conversations, so the movie allowed me to touch some of the things that are vital to my life.”
Cedar has a simple explanation for some of the curious behaviour that takes place at high-level meetings between the countries, illustrated by a scene where Ashkenazi’s character, Micha Eshel, now a figure of greater importance, lectures a U.S. diplomat visiting his Washington, D.C., hotel suite.
“One of the things that will explain so many of the encounters between Israelis and American politicians is that every time they show up they’re in jet lag,” Cedar said. “Especially around AIPAC, Israelis come to America, they’re treated like they’re Caesar and they’re a little off-balance because their time zone is all messed up. And they still have to be awake for Israeli things, so they’re sleep-deprived.”
Some viewers may presume a key plot twist in Norman was inspired by the gifts that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu allegedly received from Arnon Milchan, but Cedar finished shooting the film before the news broke.
“That relationship, of an American Jew gifting an Israeli politician, that’s not something new and it’s not something Bibi invented, and it’s not going to go away…. This is the nucleus of what the relationship is about: Americans gift Israelis,” Cedar said. “I’m trying to understand it; I’m not introducing it. Everyone knows that that’s what it is.”
The encounter between Norman and Micha in the shoe store – on which the movie turns – is Cedar’s inspired way of conveying the complicated personal and moral aspects of any transaction between Americans and Israelis.
“All the meetings between Norman and Eshel helped me understand this relationship, and helped me understand this on an individual, human level, not on a geopolitical or policy side,” Cedar explained.
Cedar also viewed Norman’s character and fate through another prism, that of the so-called “court Jews” of past eras.
“There’s a set of characteristics of that personality that I’m attracted to,” he said. “I identify with the need to get into a close circle of power, and then the tragedy of being ultimately kicked out because you have no substance on your own. You have no safety net, no one is there to protect you, you don’t have an interest that someone else needs to protect.”
Cedar injects notes of levity and absurdity into Norman’s saga, which stem from the director’s appreciation for the long tradition in movies of characters looking bad for our amusement.
“Norman is a little less naïve and he is not as pure as [Charlie Chaplin’s] Tramp, but it’s the same kind of situations – of pushing yourself into places where you’re not invited and being kicked out,” he said.
“Cohen’s Advertising Scheme and Cohen’s Fire Sale, part of a series of [short] films from 1902 to 1907, take place in a shop or right outside the shop’s window, and [involve] a merchant trying to cheat someone and ultimately being the victim of his own scheme.”
Cedar acknowledged that some contemporary viewers will see something offensive in the Cohen films.
“Putting it in the context of the image of the Jew in cinema, these are crazy portrayals of Jews,” Cedar said. “They’re grotesque. But it’s just a form of comedy. In the ’30s, if you put that kind of character on the screen, there’s an agenda behind it. In the very beginning, I think it was just funny.”
Gere is not an actor one associates with embarrassment and pratfalls, but he is extremely effective here playing a man trying to retain his dignity amid impending disaster.
“There’s something about Norman that I thought might connect to this primal need of moviegoers to see someone make a fool out of himself, to humiliate himself more than most people are willing to humiliate themselves,” Cedar said. “It’s a form of entertainment that I enjoy.”
There’s another basic element of Norman’s character that Cedar shares, however.
“It’s being essential to something,” he said. “Norman feels if he’s not essential to other people’s projects, then he has no existence. So, his whole motive is, ‘How do I become essential to others? How do I create a situation where people are dependent on me?’ I identify with that because I have that. It’s part of me.”
Michael Fox is a writer and film critic living in San Francisco.
Diverse DOXA festival offerings
In the very talented ensemble of The Road Forward by Marie Clements are Michelle St. John, left, and Jennifer Kreisberg. (photos from National Film Board of Canada)
This year’s DOXA Documentary Film Festival features several films with Jewish community connections. They explore a wide range of topics: First Nations activism, Fort McMurray and the oil sands, real-life mermaids, bigotry against larger people, and being a freelance journalist in the Middle East. They will make you question your assumptions, ponder the various ways in which humans find connection, and introduce you to ideas, people and places you probably didn’t know existed.
Opening the festival, which runs May 4-14, is The Road Forward. In the very talented ensemble of this musical documentary by Marie Clements are Michelle St. John and Jennifer Kreisberg. As many of us do, St. John and Kreisberg have multiple cultural heritages that form their identity; in their instances, First Nations and Jewish are among them. In addition to performing, Kreisberg also composed and/or arranged many of the songs; the main composer is Wayne Lavallee.
The Road Forward began as a 10-minute performance piece commissioned for the Aboriginal Pavilion at the 2010 Olympics, and premièred as a full-length theatre show at the 2015 PuSh Festival. The documentary has mostly traditional components – interviews, archival footage, news clips – but these are broken up by a number of songs, which add energy and emotion to the film.
The documentary uses as its starting point the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, which were established in the 1930s, when First Nations people were not permitted to meet and organize. The groups’ “official organ,” the Native Voice, was the first indigenous-run newspaper in Canada.
“The idea was to honour B.C.’s history, so I started researching and reading online and came across the archives of the Native Brotherhood and Sisterhood, the oldest Native organization in the country. Their parent organization, the Native Fishing Association, is located in West Vancouver, close to me,” explains Clements in the press material.
The Road Forward touches on many issues along its journey to current-day First Nation activists, who carry on in their ancestors’ paths. Though their goals are varied – some fight for particular legal or policy changes, others for restitution and reconciliation, yet others for their own voice and place in the world – they are all seeking justice, equality, understanding.
The songs highlight the immense struggles. As but two examples, “1965” is about the decades upon decades that First Nations have been denied the basic rights that most other Canadians have long enjoyed, and “My Girl” is a heartbreaking tribute to the aboriginal women who have been murdered along British Columbia’s Highway 16, the “Highway of Tears.” The Indian Constitution Express, a movement organized by George Manuel in 1980-81 to protest the lack of aboriginal rights in then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s plans to patriate the Canadian Constitution, receives somewhat more attention than other activist achievements, and the song “If You Really Believe,” based on a speech by Manuel, is quite powerful.
The May 4 gala screening of The Road Forward is the official launch of Aabiziingwashi (#WideAwake), National Film Board of Canada’s Indigenous Cinema on Tour. For the length of 2017, NFB is offering films from its 250-plus collection to all Canadians via [email protected]. The film also runs on May 10 and Clements will participate in a Q&A following both screenings.
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Limit is the Sky follows a handful of 20-somethings who have moved to Fort McMurray to follow their dreams. A few years before the price of oil plummeted in 2015 and the 2016 wildfire decimated the northern Alberta city, the average family income in “Fort Mac,” was $190,000 a year, according to the film. Working on the oil sands was where the real money lay, but others were drawn to the college or to places that serve the oil workers (and others), such as hairdressing salons and restaurants.
Most striking about the population we meet in Limit is the Sky is their diversity: they not only come from other Canadian provinces and the United States but from much further afield. The seven young dreamers featured include Max, from Lebanon; Mucharata, from the Philippines, who had to leave her 2-year-old son behind initially (for fours years); and KingDeng, a former child soldier from South Sudan, who had to help support his wife and children (in Edmonton) while at school in Fort McMurray.
“I was looking for young people who’d just recently arrived in Fort Mac, full of hopes, dreams and naïveté,” says filmmaker Julia Ivanova in the press material. “I wanted to walk the viewer through their ups and downs in a place where the men seem tough and the women even tougher. I wasn’t looking for tough characters, though: sensitivity and beauty – both inner and physical beauty – were important to me.”
Ivanova, who has Jewish roots, migrated to Canada from Russia many years ago.
“Being an immigrant myself,” she notes, “I could feel what was at stake for these young people and the challenges they face on a very intimate level.”
The main filming ran from fall 2012 to spring 2015. She felt welcomed by the people in the city, though not by the industry. “That was a brick wall I hit over and over again,” she says. “There was no filming of anyone allowed, anywhere, period.”
By the end of the film, most of the millennials featured had left the city, along with many others. “The town felt almost deserted, compared to how I had seen it in 2012 and 2013,” says Ivanova. “So many people were leaving. There was so much anxiety. I went to all the places I loved – and they’d all changed.”
Ivanova’s film shows the hope, the drive, the challenges, the loneliness of her interviewees. The dynamics are much more complex than one might assume of a city that relied on the oil sands for its prosperity. The environment is of crucial importance, obviously, but people matter, too, and this documentary shines a necessary light on that fact.
Limit is the Sky screens May 5.
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Falling into the who-ever-would-have-thought category, Ali Weinstein’s Mermaids introduces viewers to real-life mermaids, of a sort.
Rachel’s underwater job at the Dive Bar in Sacramento, Calif., helps her deal with a family tragedy. Vicki and a group of former Weeki Wachee Resort (in Florida) swimmers recall their mermaid days, including a show for Elvis and a 50th anniversary performance. Being a mermaid helps Cookie, who was abused as a child and has mental health issues, manage life, and she and her soulmate, Eric, who makes her mermaid tails, are married in a mermaid wedding, after being together for some 30 years. Last but not least, Julz, a transgender woman who was bullied as a child and disowned by her father, discovers acceptance and love in a Huntington Beach, Calif., mermaid group.
Weinstein intersperses these stories with brief summaries of long-told mermaid tales, “from the 3,000-year-old Assyrian figure of Atargatis to the Mami Wata water spirits of West Africa.”
It really is a fascinating documentary, showing just how resilient and resourceful the human spirit is.
Mermaids plays twice during DOXA, on May 6 and 13, and Weinstein will be in attendance at both screenings.
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Think of the cartoon villains and the hapless sidekicks. How are they often portrayed? As fat, dumb and/or oversexed? If those weren’t your first thoughts, think again. The documentary Fattitude convincingly shows how widespread bigotry against larger people is – so much so that it can be overlooked, until pointed out. Then, you wonder how you ever missed it.
From the old woman in the candy house that eats Hansel and Gretel, to Star Wars’ Jabba the Hut, to the evil squid in The Little Mermaid, these are just a few of the villains. Then there is the heavyset and dumb Hardy, sidekick to thin, smart Laurel; the stereotypical chubby best friend in so many movies; and the archetypal black nanny, forever cast in the caring, subservient role. Miss Piggy is a more complex character, both strong and confident in herself, but also sex-crazy over Kermit. And, in the entire Star Trek franchise – where have the larger people gone?
From the age of 3, the film notes, we are already programmed with negative stereotypes. When all put together, it’s quite depressing. However, Fattitude is a rather upbeat documentary, as its interviewees are spirited, determined and intelligent enough to effect some change, mainly via social media.
Filmmakers Lindsey Averill and Viridiana Lieberman speak to almost 50 people and, to a person, they provide an interesting perspective, connecting the body images depicted in films, television shows, cartoons, magazines and advertisements with their effects on viewers and on our perceptions of ourselves and others. The film discusses the links between race, socioeconomic status and weight, as well as the reasons why Michelle Obama’s campaign to end childhood obesity was misguided.
Fattitude screens May 9.
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Being a journalist in a war zone seems dangerous and frightening, and it is. But it is also tedious and lonely. At least this is what it seems from watching Santiago Bertolino’s Freelancer on the Front Lines.
Bertolino follows Toronto-born, Beirut-based freelance journalist Jesse Rosenfeld as Rosenfeld hustles to get story ideas and budgets approved, waits in sparse hotel rooms for fixers to connect him with interviewees, and ventures into Egypt during its post-Arab Spring elections, the West Bank during an Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a Syrian refugee camp in Turkey and to Iraq, where they witness the fight against ISIS from the front lines.
Some of the more disturbing images are of the bodies of Palestinians gunned down in a home by undetermined executioners and the corpses of dead ISIS fighters dumped in the back of a truck, as well as tied to its back bumper. In another memorable part, Rosenfeld yells questions to a caged Mohamed Fahmy, when Fahmy and two fellow Al Jazeera journalists were on trial in Cairo. (Fahmy, who holds both Canadian and Egytian citizenship, spent almost two years in jail of a three-year sentence.)
Rosenfeld has strong views and isn’t afraid to share them, though he struggles to make eye contact with the camera when he makes his pronouncements. Some of the best exchanges in the film are between him and Canadian-Israeli journalist Lia Tarachansky, who hold different opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Freelancer on the Front Lines screens May 13 at Vancity and will include a post-film discussion.
For tickets and the full DOXA Documentary Film Festival schedule, visit doxafestival.ca.