Eyes wide open
Kill Daddy Goodnight
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Festival of Jewish Cinema.
To celebrate, the festival team have combined a retrospective of the most popular films featured at past festivals with the best new features and documentaries from around the world.
Screening tonight is Empty Nest, the new work from Argentinean director Daniel Burman whose previous films Waiting for the Messiah, Lost Embrace and Family Law have all opened past festivals.
Empty Nest is the story of Martha and Leonardo, a middle-aged couple who find themselves alone for the first time in years after their youngest child flies the coop. Martha finds purpose in returning to university while Leonardo finds solace by escaping into a fantasy land that begins to become so real for him he increasingly departs from reality. Brimming with Burman's trademark humour, the film moves from the frantically colourful streets of Buenos Aires to the stunningly peaceful calm of the Dead Sea.
Other festival highlights include The Wedding Song (Le chant des mariées) from French-Algerian-Jewish filmmaker Karin Albou, who won accolades for her feature debut La Petite Jerusalem. Michael Glawogger's Kill Daddy Goodnight is a powerful and sobering story exploring still-unaddressed issues of individual choices made during the Holocaust era. Paul Schrader, perhaps best known for scripting Scorsese's Taxi Driver, directs Jeff Goldblum in Adam Resurrected, a haunting drama of Holocaust memories. And Raphaël Nadjari's engrossing documentary A History of Israeli Cinema covers the evolution of Israeli cinema from its earliest days to its present-day renaissance.
With 11 days to go until the festival closes, there's still time to catch many Australian premieres and special presentations before the season ends on Sunday 29 November. So stop schlepping!
For screening details click here
Published Thursday, 19 November 2009
|
|
|
