Among the first movies to deal with the subject of the Holocaust, this documentary about Jewish war orphans, was screened in New York in September 1948 and has rarely been seen since. According to film critic Jim Hoberman, the film was modeled on Children Must Laugh, a pre-war Yiddish-language picture about Jewish orphans. This film incorporates newsreels, actual footage of children receiving aid from relief agencies, and a few staged sequences. An introductory credit reads: "This film is about the children in the Homes and Camps of France, operated under the auspices of the Jewish Union for Resistance and...
An Australian documentary examining the portrayal of Jewish mothers on the big screen. From an early age filmmaker Monique Schwarz was puzzled by the discrepancy between the domineering and emasculating Jewish mothers typically represented on film, and her own mother, a Holocaust survivor. "Mamadrama" consequently has a strong personal touch, via the refהרlections of Schwarz and interviews with directors Paul Mazursky, Paul Bogart, and Larry Peerce, and actress Lainie Kazan. In addition to well-known Hollywood movies "Mamadrama" uses rare footage from early silent films, Yiddish language features and Israeli...
השנה היא 1959. מקס ביאליסטוק, מי שהיה פעם מלך מחזות הזמר של ברודווי נכשל בכל פעם מחדש. בעזרתו של ליאו בלום רואה חשבון נירוטי הוא מתכנן לגייס כספים רבים ולהשקיע רק חלק קטן מהם במחזמר כל כך כושל שאף אחד לא ירצה לראות, ואז לברוח עם הכסף. הוא מחליט להעלות מחזמר בשם "אביב להיטלר" על הדיקטטור הגרמני הרצחני. הוא מגייס במאי מצועצע וצוות שחקנים גרוע שכולל שחקן ראשי מטורלל ושחקנית שבדית בשם אולה. ערב הבכורה של המחזמר והאולם מלא עד אפס מקום ובסוף ההופעה הקהל מתלהב. משהו השתבש, המחזמר מתגלה כהצלחה.
This documentary looks at the development of traditional Jewish humour in America. Includes contributions from Milton Berle, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers and Billy Crystal.
This documentary reviews the Yiddish cinema in the US and Europe between the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927 and the outbreak of the WW2 in 1939. It present excerpts from several of the 300 Yiddish movies made between during these years, and also ties this short life together and puts it into a context. It captures the idea and the history of these movies, which are now, in themselves, important documents of American and Jewish immigrant history. The excerpts of the films themselves tell of the life in New York, many times lives of poverty in new ghettos. There are melodramas about aged parents finding...
This documentary tells the story of Walter Suskind, a German Jew living in Amsterdam who was forced by the Nazis to serve as the Jewish head of deportation at the Hollandsche Schouwburg (the Jewish Theater site) in Amsterdam. Using his fluent German and his skills as an actor and businessman, he orchestrated the escape of almost 1,000 Dutch children and adults from the death camps. Suskind himself died at Auschwitz. Through testimonies by resistance members who knew him, and five of the nearly 1,000 children they saved, the film recreates the his story. The stories are interwoven in a personal style, creating a...
Soviet newsreel (August 30, 1941), which features Soviet Union's most prominent Jewish writers and artists issue an appeal to Jews throughout the world, asking them to join the Soviet people "in the war against Fascism". The group included actor Solomon Mikhoels, writer Ilya Ehrenburg, pianist Yaakov Zaks, poet Peretz Markish and film director Sergei Eisenstein. The meeting, which took place in the Moscow Hall of Columns led to formation of the Jewish Antifascist Committee in 1942. Mikhoels and Markish later fell victim to the Stalinist purges in the 1940s and '50s. The Jewish Antifascist Committee was...
A documentary film. Leonie Brandt was an actress. Later on, shebecame a spy for the Dutch intelligence service in Nazi Germany. After the war a number of prominent Dutchmen feared Leonie for what she knew about their actions during the occupation. The film follows the chronology of her life via scenes from old movies.