It felt like the best kind of deja vu to coordinate with Iréne Hodes, director of film festivals and cultural events at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) of Sonoma County.
We spoke for a Bohemian article in October of last year, when the JCC presented their 26th Sonoma County Jewish Film Festival, in purely remote form due to the circumstances of Covid.
Now, the JCC is presenting its 7th annual Israeli Film Festival, which is being shown in a hybrid form, with four screenings at the Rialto Cinema in Sebastopol, and online streaming of all films for three weeks. It’s important to the JCC to maintain the hybrid format going forward—they have no plans to stop virtual accessibility.
“We learned during the last two years that having access to high quality films and entertainment at home was a lifeline to many people,” said Hodes. “All of the Israeli Film Festival films are available to be streamed at home through our dedicated platform, including two films that can only be seen online. A hybrid festival is the best of both worlds—for those who would like to celebrate in-person together, and for those who feel more comfortable at home. There is something for everyone—a film for everyone, and a medium for everyone.”
The accessibility is ideal—this year’s lineup is as phenomenal and carefully curated as ever, featuring unique and powerful independent Israeli cinema. As with the Jewish Film Festival, the Israeli Film Festival films are curated by a selection committee of dedicated volunteers who meet weekly for much of the year. They screen films, as well as discuss and rate them. Hodes tells me it was a real delight this year, and difficult to narrow the selection with so many exceptional films from Israel. For this reason, the festival also features two “online-only” films, giving people a chance to see even more than what’s being screened in the cinema.
Here are some of Hodes’s tips and insights into the upcoming lineup.
“If I had to choose a particularly unique pairing (of the festival’s films), it would be the documentary double feature on May 3, Black Flowers, written and directed by Tammy Federman, and That Orchestra with the Broken Instruments, produced and directed by Yuval Hameiri. Black Flowers follows the story of five Holocaust survivors who became very skilled and accomplished artists, and how their relationship with their art has affected their memories of their trauma.”
Hodes emphasizes that this is no ordinary Holocaust documentary or bio-pic. This film received the highest rating from her organization’s film selection committee.
“In the second film,” said Hodes, “That Orchestra with the Broken Instruments, we meet musicians and composers, Jerusalemites, who come from very different walks of life. Young and old, professional and amateur, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hebrew-speakers, Arabic-speakers, English speakers, to name a few demographics. It’s a one-time concert that brings them together, and their instruments are all broken. It’s playful and poetic, delving into the spaces, similarities and differences between broken and whole.”
Black Flowers filmmaker Tammy Federman will be giving a talk on May 5 at noon via Zoom. There will also be a Zoom panel talk and Q&A with a Sonoma County local art therapist and a local music therapist, who will have both seen the films and will be leading a talk on the therapeutic power of the arts, with the films as inspiration and point of reference. The dates for this are not firm yet, so stay tuned.
In addition to these two choices, the festival also features Greener Pastures, directed by Matan Guggenheim and Assaf Abiri, The Raft, directed by Oded Raz—the director of Maktub, one of Israel’s biggest box office sensations—Give it Back, directed by Ruchama Ehrenhalt and One More Story, directed by Guri Alfi.
Greener Pastures is a comedy and tells the story of Dov, a penniless widower who is forced to live in a nursing home, to his misery and chagrin. He dreams of leaving the nursing home and buying back his beloved family home to live in until he dies. But Dov has no money since losing his pension. When he notices that all his fellow residents smoke legal medical cannabis, he realizes that weed could be his salvation—not in the smoking of it, but the selling. When love, the police and the mafia come into play, Dov finds himself at a crossroads: will he risk it all to make his dream come true? This film was nominated for 11 Ophir Israeli Academy Awards.
The Raft is a story of intense, life-changing adventure. In an incredibly rare feat, Israel’s soccer team has won a critical match and is now vying for a chance to reach the World Cup, but, due to increased security measures, has moved the game to the island of Cyprus. Four adolescent Israeli kids and diehard soccer fans undertake whatever measures necessary to make it to the game. Inspired by the mythological journey of Kon-Tiki, they decide to build a raft on their own and cross the Mediterranean Sea to attend the fateful game. During their perilous journey, their friendship is put to the ultimate test as they get a taste of first love and discover things about themselves that they didn’t know existed. Their innocent adventure evolves into an unforgettable coming-of-age journey.
Give it Back is the story of Olivia, a 12-year-old girl who has just moved with her family from New York and is starting at a new school. She struggles to find her place within the hierarchy of her new classmates, finding herself caught between the popular students and her shy classmate, Alem. Olivia must ultimately make a choice about who she is and how she will navigate her newfound circumstances. This is a drama about young character and identity development in a new place.
One More Story is a romantic comedy that tells the story of Yarden Gat—a young, brilliant, ambitious journalist working at a famous newspaper and who doesn’t believe in love. Nonetheless, she takes on the mission of finding love for her best friend, a hopeless romantic who has no idea how to talk to women. In the guise of an experiment, she convinces him to go on 30 dates in 30 days with 30 women, all while publishing the scoop in her newspaper. Will he find love through science? Will she change her mind? Or will fate take its course? A fun, sweet and funny movie, it stars Guri Alfi, Lior Ashkenazi, Dina Sanderson, Maayan Bloom and Danielle Gal.
