By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
Nobody can say that the Louisville Jewish Film Festival is one-dimensional.
The 27th edition of Kentucky’s largest Jewish cinema celebration, which opened Feb. 8 and runs through Feb. 23 at the Trager Family JCC and elsewhere around town, offers 11 live and virtual film events. Add to this a smattering of special programs, and it becomes clear there’s something to tantalize pretty much any moviegoer – Jewish or not.
“Our audience is as varied as we are, so we need to match that,” says Janet Hodes, co-chair of the film selection committee. “We have some very serious films, and some very silly films. We have fiction and documentaries, films about contemporary and historical issues. There’s something relevant in all of these. It’s why we have a Jewish Film Festival – to explore and help people learn something new about Jewish life.”
Take, for example, “Sabbath Queen” (Feb. 23 at the Speed Museum) – director Sandi Simcha DuBowski’s 2024 documentary filmed over the course of 21 years that – as its synopsis relates — “follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie’s epic journey as the dynastic heir of 38 generations of Orthodox rabbis including the Chief Rabbis of Israel.”
“Lau-Lavie, an Israel-born gay man who just a few years before entering New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary had been a pillar of a ‘God-optional’ community,” New York Times reviewer Elisabeth Vincentelli wrote this past November.
“How he went from the Radical Faeries’ joyous, transgressive vision of queerness — which led to creating his drag alter ego, Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross — to embracing Conservative Judaism is the subject of Sandi DuBowski’s fascinating look at the act of questioning yourself and your family, your surroundings and your decisions.”
“It’s part of our messaging – building bridges,” explains Tricia Kling Siegwald, Senior Director, Adult Programming at the Jewish Federation of Louisville and the Trager Family JCC. “That’s part of our mission: being inclusive.”
DuBowski will participate in a post-showing virtual discussion at the Speed.
Want something a bit breezier (that also has Shabbat in its title)? Then check out the festival’s opening film, “Bad Shabbos” (Feb. 8, in which a Friday night dinner devolves into a murder mystery – well, sort of).
“This goes along with our opening night event’s ‘whodunnit’ theme,” Siegwald says, declining – with a bit of a wink – to elaborate. “I don’t want to give away all the surprises right now about that night,” she teased, adding that some fortunate film buff will walk away with a gift card to Louisville’s high-end beef emporium, Repeal Oak Fired Steakhouse.
And before “Bad Shabbos” hits the screen at the Trager Family JCC’s Shapira Foundation Auditorium, ticket holders can sample hors d’oeuvres, and Siegwald promises, “a mocktail related to the theme of the event.”
The most emotionally resonant program of all may well unfold on the evening of Feb. 11, when the Trager Family JCC hosts a showing of “The Very Narrow Bridge.” Here director Esther Takac tells the stories of two Jews and two Palestinians, all of whom has lost a child to the ensuing conflict. The four participants are members of Israeli Palestinian Bereaved Families for Reconciliation and Peace – also known as the Parents Circle Family Forum — described as “a controversial grassroots movement of broken-hearted people, who stand side-by-side to end the violence and build a future based on dignity and equality.”
Ranen Omer-Sherman (JHF Endowed Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Louisville) and Trent Spoolstra (director of the Jewish Community Relations Council) will moderate a post-showing discussion reflecting how, Siegwald says, “there are people out there working towards peace.”
As in past Festivals, the Louis Levy and Wilma Probst Levy Film and Theater Arts Fund is Founding Partner and a principal sponsor, along with the Rosa Gladstein Fund and such supporters as the Federation, the Jewish Heritage Fund, Jewish Family & Career Services, LEO Weekly, Louisville Public Media and Louisville-Jefferson County Metro.
Potential films are evaluated initially by a five-member “pre-selection” committee, with the full, 15-member committee making the final decisions.
“There’s a whole process of research,” Siegwald says, “before we share anything with the committee.”
“Sometimes we know about a film, but there’s no distributor,” says committee co-chair Keiley Caster. Or “there’s a film that is so popular that it’s really a commercial film, like ‘The Brutalist.”
“Actually, we did try to get that early on,” co-chair Hodes added, “but the distributors knew this was going to be a big thing, so they held us off.”
Numerous committee members have served for much of the festival’s 27-year history. “They love it,” Siegwald says. “They’re just incredible, passionate people.”
Hodes – who’s one of those stalwart committee members – recommends paying special attention to Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara. The film, directed by Marco Bellocchio, tells the true story of how a six-year-old Jewish boy living in 19th-century Italy was taken from his family (by order of the Pope) and brought up as a Catholic.
“This was a chapter in Jewish history that many people, including me, were not familiar with,” she says.
The Feb. 15 showing at the Trager Family JCC will be followed by a Q & A session with Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Kertzer (participating virtually), who chronicled this extraordinary narrative in his 1997 book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. The discussion, moderated by Solange Minstein, is sponsored by Wilma Probst Levy.
This year’s Festival will be spread among five venues: the Trager Family JCC, Baxter Avenue Theatres Filmworks, Adath Jeshurun, The Temple and the Speed. Some films will be viewable only virtually, and because of location restrictions, out-of-area viewers are likely to be out-of-luck viewers.
Aficionados may want to take advantage of a Virtual Festival Pass, which allows you to view all seven virtual films (six full length and one short). Note that these passes don’t grant access to live events, for which you’ll need to purchase separate tickets.
Happily, you won’t need to pay anything to watch I See You, this season’s short film, which will be shown virtually. This 20-minute cinematic nugget tells of Danny Layani, who after 25 years of being totally blind, regains his sight long enough to finally see his wife and four children.
Call it another example of reaching out to a fan-base-in-waiting. “We’re opening minds to more new people,” Siegwald says. “We love doing that.”
With that dynamic in mind, “we have a community outreach subcommittee,” Siegwald says, “because we want to grow different segments of the community” – even beyond the festival’s customary spot on the calendar. This past September, for example, “we had an outdoor film shown on a huge inflatable screen” adjacent to the Camp J building.
The event featured Hotel Transylvania and was free to Trager Family JCC members. It was consistent with the Trager Family JCC’s ongoing imperative: engage with members of the Jewish community wherever they may be and regardless of their background, telling their stories from one generation to another.
In other words, the bridge-building never stops. Or as Siegwald puts it: “We’re always looking for opportunities.”
For tickets and complete information about the 27th Annual Louisville Jewish Film Festival, go online at https://jewishlouisville.org/the-j/j-arts-ideas/film-festival/