Joyce Forum Short Film Festival’s special joys

By Laurie Baron

Laurie Baron
Joyce Axelrod

SAN DIEGO — The Joyce Forum Short Film Festival is triply new.  It will screen on October 6th and 7th at the David and Dorothea Garfield Theatre of the Lawrence Family JCC separately from the San Diego Jewish Film Festival becoming the first Jewish shorts film festival in the world.   As the Forum’s founder and namesake Joyce Axelrod observes, “There has never been a better time to watch short films. There are more being made, there are more festivals that cater to the format, and the internet and portable devices are perfect for watching short films. I am proud of the producers of the San Diego Jewish Film Festival for being visionaries and establishing this inaugural shorts festival.”

Two of the five programs that comprise the Forum will not be the usual assortment of varied shorts by directors hailing from different countries.   Program 1 at 8 P.M. on October 6th will feature only Israeli short films.  These will broach topics as diverse as Orthodox resistance to a daughter honoring the wishes of her deceased father that one of his children continue his work as a gravedigger, an ultra-Orthodox women trying to accept her transgender brother’s new sexual identity, a Palestinian orphan struggling to remain with his unstable grandmother, an Israeli Arab dancer enduring discrimination at a checkpoint, and a stranger altering the life of a waitress at a restaurant on her fiftieth birthday.

Program 4 at 4:30 p.m. on October 7th will be the American premier of the trilogy Witnesses by San Diego director Konstantin Fam.  The child of a North Vietnamese father and a Russian Jewish mother, Fam grew up in Soviet Ukraine.  Fam helped found the Moscow Jewish Film Festival in 2015.  He has dedicated Witnesses to the memory of the Soviet Jews who perished in the Holocaust.  His cinematic perspective on commemorating the Shoah is unique.  Some of you may recall the stunning first film of the trilogy Shoes from the Joyce Forum several years ago.  It focused on the shoes worn by Jews as they moved through their daily lives until the Holocaust reduced their confiscated footwear to the only remains of their existence.  The second film Brutus traces the course of the Holocaust through the eyes of a German shepherd taken from his Jewish owner and trained to be a guard dog at a concentration camp.  The third film Violin follows the transfers of ownership and uses of the instrument during the course of World War Two.

Another novel component of the Joyce Forum involves partnering with the Murray Galinson San Diego Israel Initiative to host two award-winning young Israeli filmmakers, Moshe Rosenthal and Eli Rezik, at the Joyce Forum programs, universities in the San Diego metropolitan area, and other local venues where they will discuss their works, the Israeli film scene, and contemporary Israeli issues with university students and community members during the two weeks surrounding the festival.

Rosenthal was born in Holon near Tel Aviv.  After his IDF service, he enrolled at the Tel Aviv University Cinema and Television Department during which he wrote and directed two shorts that were shown in film festivals around the world.  After finishing his studies, he directed videos for emerging musicians.  In 2016 he won the best director award at the Jerusalem film festival for his short film Shabaton (Leave of Absence).  His latest short film, ​ Our Way Back, starring veteran Israel actor Lior Ashkenazi, will be screened at university classes and private showings through San Diego, before hitting the major film festivals around the world.

Born in the city of Nazareth, Rezik received his B.A. Degree from Tel-Aviv University “Cinema & Television” in 2017. Since then he has directed various short films including Ten Bell Tolls (2017) which will be featured in the Joyce Forum Short Film Festival, Bana, and Between us Two. He also has worked on feature films, including the Oscar nominated Omar, Villa Touma, and The Beautiful Fantastic.

The following is a schedule of Rezik’s and Rosenthal’s appearances:

  1. October 6th, 7:00-9:30pm
  1. October 7th, 10:30am-9:00pm
    • JCC Joyce Film Forum, programs 2-5
    • Moshe and Eli – A Conversation on the Modern State of Israel, 12:00pm
  1. October 8th, 1:45-4:30pm
    • SDSU, History/Political Science Course
  1. October 9th, 5:30-8:30pm
    • CSUSM MediaMakers
  1. October 10th, 3:30-5:00pm
    • The Hive/Leichtag Commons
  1. October 12th, 1:00-2:30pm
    • SDSU, International Film Course
  1. October 15th, 6:30-9:00pm
    • Point Loma Nazarene University
  1. October 16th, 5:00-7:00pm
    • Hillel SDSU
  1. TBD
    • UCSD

 

If you are a short film aficionado, a regular attendee at past Joyce Forums, or open to learning about and watching Jewish short films, make plans to attend one or multiple sessions at the Forum or attending one of the Israeli filmmakers’ workshops.

For more information about the campus events, please contact Mitchell Price at mitchell@mgsdii.org or 760-230-2401.

For a full schedule of the Joyce Forum programs and to purchase tickets, go to its website at:  https://www.sdcjc.org/sdjff/joyce_forum.aspx

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Baron is a retired history professor and freelance writer based in San Diego. He may be contacted via lawrence.baron@sdjewishworld.com