19th Annual Rutgers Jewish Film Festival to Run Oct. 30 - Nov. 11

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – The Rutgers Jewish Film Festival heads into its nineteenth season, Oct. 30 – Nov. 11, offering a great diversity of award-winning, international films. Fifteen feature films, five New Jersey premieres, and thought-provoking discussions with filmmakers, actors, scholars, and other noteworthy guests will be featured. The festival will be held at two venues: AMC Loews New Brunswick 18, 17 US Highway 1 South, New Brunswick (AMC); and Princeton Garden Theatre, 160 Nassau Street, Princeton (PGT). The festival is sponsored by Rutgers’ Allen and Joan Bildner Center for the Study of Jewish Life and supported by the Karma Foundation.

The Interpreter, the Slovakian entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2019 Academy Awards, opens the festival at the AMC with a special appearance by critically-acclaimed Austrian lead actor Peter Simonischek. Appearing in more than sixty films since 1980, Simonischek was the lead actor in the German film Toni Erdmann, a nominee for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2017 Oscars. An emotional journey through rural Slovakia ensues when a man is hired as an interpreter by the son of the Nazi officer who murdered his parents during World War II. A moving tale that deals with memory at both a personal and collective level, the film focuses on the unlikely friendship that develops between the two men. Opening night also includes a buffet dinner and dessert reception for festival sponsors. Two additional screenings of the film will be held: On November 4 at AMC (also attended by Simonischek), and on November 7 at PGT.

Documentary films are presented on a variety of topics including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the hijacking of an Israeli passenger bus, baseball, and identical triplets separated at birth. Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel is the heartwarming story of the 2017 Israeli national baseball team making it into the World Baseball Classic for the very first time. New Jersey native Seth Kramer, a director of the film, as well as New York Mets player Ty Kelly will make a special appearance at the November 4 screening of the film at AMC.

The New Jersey premiere of Who Will Write Our History, a film about brave resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto who risked their lives to document Jewish life in the ghetto, is a main festival feature. The film is based on Professor Samuel Kassow’s book of the same name. Kassow, Trinity College, will be the guest speaker at the November 11 matinee screening at the AMC. Acclaimed director Roberta Grossman, the film’s director, will make a guest appearance at the November 5 screening at PGT.

A special panel discussion, “Writing about Historical Events,” with Samuel Kassow and Moshe Zonder will be held on November 11 at 2:00 p.m. at the AMC. Zonder was the head writer for Fauda, the enormously popular Israeli television series turned Netflix Original. A prolific screenwriter for film and television, he also has a background in investigative journalism as a reporter for the Israeli newspaper Maariv. Zonder is participating in the Schusterman Visiting Israeli Artist program sponsored by the Israel Institute. Kassow, who wrote the book Who Will Write Our History?: Rediscovering A Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto, is an expert on the history of Ashkenazi Jewry. The program is free, but tickets are required for entrance.

As part of the Bildner Center’s effort to support and supplement classroom learning about the Holocaust, the festival will present a free film screening for middle and high school students from across New Jersey. A Bag of Marbles, a moving French film that showcases the fortitude and resilience of two young Jewish brothers who must flee occupied France for the Free Zone in 1941, will be presented in partnership with Rutgers’ Herbert and Leonard Littman Families Holocaust Resource Center. Henry and Bernard Schanzer, twin brothers now living in New Jersey who were hidden together as young boys on a farm in France, will speak with the students after the screening.

Closing night features the powerful Israeli drama An Israeli Love Story, set in the tumultuous years of 1947-1948 and based on the real life story of theater director and actress Pnina Gary. A young couple must navigate both their budding romance and their commitment to the struggle for Jewish independence from the British. An additional matinee showing will be held on November 8 at AMC.

For the schedule, ticket information, and speaker updates, visit the website BildnerCenter.Rutgers.edu/film. Festival staff can also be reached by phone at 848-932-4166, or by email at rujff@sas.rutgers.edu. Film tickets are $13 with discounted tickets for seniors and students available. Advance ticket purchase is strongly recommended as screenings often sell out prior to the festival.