Film Festival to Travel From Nazi Memories to Israeli Feasts
The 2016 Atlanta Jewish Film Festival will take a total audience of roughly 40,000 people on a journey starting with a search for a Nazi killer and ending with a quest for the best Israeli cuisine.
Along the way, film fans will experience the spooky through a Polish dybbuk and Jerusalem zombies, the melodic through the music (on film and live) of David Broza and Flory Jagoda, drama, mystery, history, some love, and the comic side of nuclear confrontation and mother-daughter relationships.
The 16th annual festival runs from Tuesday, Jan. 26, to Wednesday, Feb. 17, and presents 77 films from 26 countries. Five of them, all short films of three to 28 minutes, are world premieres, including a documentary about Atlanta comedian Jerry Farber called “Jerry-Atric.”
Nine other films are touted as North American premieres, and four are U.S. premieres.
“Remember” isn’t any of those, but the Hollywood talent in front of and behind the camera earned it the role of opening the festival Jan. 26 at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre. Oscar winner Christopher Plummer stars as an Auschwitz survivor, supported by fellow Oscar winner Martin Landau. Academy Award nominee Atom Egoyan directs the film, which is being released in the United States 2½ weeks after it opens the Atlanta festival.
The screening, open to the general public, starts at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26 after a gala at 5 p.m. for festival sponsors and patrons.
Opening-night tickets are $18, as are tickets for the closing-night showing of “In Search of Israeli Cuisine” at 7 p.m. Feb. 16 at the Woodruff Arts Center, to be followed by an Israeli food tasting. Also going for $18 are tickets to the festival’s ACCESS Night, featuring the romance “Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong” and a pre-screening party at new festival venue SCADshow, and to the two screenings of “East Jerusalem West Jerusalem” on Jan. 30, each of which includes a post-film performance by Broza, the subject of the documentary.
Other tickets are $13 for screenings that start after 4 p.m., $9 for matinees, and $11 for children, students, and people 65 and older. Tickets go on sale at ajff.org and 678-701-6104 on Sunday, Jan. 10.
The Atlanta festival this year became the largest of the world’s more than 200 Jewish film festivals by serving a total audience of more than 38,600 people. The festival’s growth should put it on track to surpass 40,000 viewers in 2016.
“We are proud to unveil the sprawling lineup for the 2016 AJFF, featuring diverse, high-caliber films from around the globe,” festival Executive Director Kenny Blank said in an announcement of the lineup. “This is a cultural celebration and an artistic showcase meant to feed the soul and the mind, as well as entertain. It is more than just a night at the movies; it is a curated experience that engages and inspires diverse audiences with film through a Jewish lens.”
The Atlanta Jewish Times is sponsoring screenings Feb. 4 and 5 of “Je Suis Charlie,” a documentary about the staff members of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo who were slain in a terrorist attack in January.
You can view the full lineup and schedule and download the program guide at AJFF.org. The AJT will have the full lineup and an expansive festival preview in our first issue of 2016 on Jan. 8.
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