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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, February 17, 2006

Jewish Film Festival offers 11 international entries

 •  Screening room

Advertiser Staff

Sheldon Kasner (Rob LaBelle, second from left) falls in with fellows who are not exactly what they seem in "The Burial Society," screening Monday afternoon.

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The 4th annual Kirk Cashmere Jewish Film Festival, featuring 11 films from nine countries, takes place today through Sunday at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa's Spalding Auditorium.

The festival is named for Honolulu civil-rights attorney Cashmere, who died in 2002.

Tickets are $6 at the door; a five-film Festival Flash Pass is $25, available at the door or at Temple Emanu-El, 2550 Pali Highway. A Kabbalat Shabbat (welcoming the Sabbath) service will precede the opening film tonight at 7. 223-0130.

The films:

  • "Paper Clips" (directed by Eliot Berlin and Joe Fab; 2004, USA, 87 minutes).

    Students in a rural Tennessee middle school decide to collect 6 million paper clips to better understand the enormity of the Holocaust and its 6 million Jewish victims.

    7:30 p.m. today, after Sabbath service at 7 p.m.

  • "Le Grande Role" (directed by Steven Suissa; 2004, France, 89 minutes).

    A famous American director comes to Paris and casts Maurice in the lead role of a Yiddish adaptation of "The Merchant of Venice." Maurice's joy is tempered, and the role eventually lost to another, after the news of his wife's illness. Still, he and his actor friends do all they can to keep her thinking he has the part.

    Noon Saturday and 7:30 p.m. Sunday

  • "The Legacy of Rosina Lhevinne" (directed by Salome Ramras Arkatov; 2003, USA, 65 minutes).

    A look at the legendary pianist and master teacher whose students included Van Cliburn, Misha Dichter, James Levine and John Williams.

    Playing with:

  • "A Bridge to Peace" (directed by Rob Simonds; 2005, Britain, 52 minutes).

    Four American, Bosnian and Dutch musicians consider their European roots during a concert tour of Poland.

    2:30 p.m. Saturday

  • "Only Human (Seres Queridos)" (directed by Dominic Harari; 2004, Spain, 89 minutes).

    Comedy: A quirky Jewish family is in an uproar after daughter Leni reveals that her fiance Rafi is Palestinian.

    5 p.m. Saturday, noon Sunday

  • "Go For Zucker!" (directed by Dani Levy; 2004, Germany, 95 minutes).

    This slapstick tale about a dysfunctional Jewish family is the first German-Jewish comedy made in Germany since World War II. Two brothers must reconcile before the burial of their mother in order to share the inheritance.

    7:30 p.m. Saturday and noon Monday

  • "Rasheviski's Tango" (directed by Sam Garbarski; 2004, Belgium/ France/Luxembourg, 100 minutes).

    Comedy: After grandmother Rosa dies, the rest of the family searches for its Jewish identity.

    2:30 p.m. Sunday

  • "Yidl in the Middle: Growing Up Jewish in Iowa" (directed by Marlene Booth; 1998, USA, 58 minutes). Filmmaker Booth will attend.

    Award-winning filmmaker and Honolulu resident Marlene Booth, who grew up in Des Moines, focuses on the pressure on Jews to adapt their behavior to small-town America norms.

    5 p.m. Sunday

  • "The Burial Society" (directed by Nicholas Racz; USA, 2004, 89 minutes).

    Sheldon Kasner, a loan manager at a bank, is drawn into the criminal world of money-laundering, and suddenly $2 million is missing. He then concocts a plan that involves the Chevrah Kadisha or Burial Society, composed of devout Jewish men who are not the innocents they seem to be.

    2:30 p.m. Monday

  • "Resisting Forces" (directed by Renée Sanders; 2003, Netherlands, 85 minutes). Filmmaker Sanders will attend.

    During World War II, in the Dutch city of Enschede, the Jewish Council, including the filmmaker's grandfather, managed to save more than a third of the city's Jewish citizens from death.

    5 p.m. Monday

  • "Walk on Water" (directed by Eytan Fox; 2004, Israel, 89 minutes).

    Eyal is an Israeli intelligence agent who's tracking a Nazi war criminal through his grandchildren, Axel (who is openly gay) and Pia. Their friendship has a startling effect on Eyal's political and personal perceptions.

    7:30 p.m. Monday