Jewish Arts & Film Festival

2011 Season October 29 – November 13

Films are shown at the Garden Cinema in Norwalk or the State Cinema in Stamford. For more information, call Nancy Schiffman at 203-487-0941, visit www.Stamfordjcc.org or e-mail nschiffman@stamfordjcc.org.

Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray Coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, Jewish Soldiers in Blue and Gray, an Indigo Films production, is a first-of-its-kind film that reveals the little-known struggles facing Jewish Americans, both in battle and on the home front, during the nation’s darkest hour.

Salsa Tel Aviv This fun romantic comedy introduces us to Vicki, a Mexican salsa dancer and Yoni, a young Israeli scientist. Vicki, the poor single mom, leaves her young son with her mother and flies to Israel dressed as a nun in order to sneak into the country. 

The Yankles A washed-up pro baseball player, Charlie, must do community service after a series of drunk driving convictions. Charlie discovers that coaching an Orthodox rabbinical college’s winless baseball team, the Yankles, is his only choice. 

The Tailor Set in New York and shot beautifully in black and white, this mostly silent comic short tells the tale of two young Talmudic scholars who are concerned that they've been duped by their tailor, Markus Pincus.

The Matchmaker Set in the shadow cast by the Holocaust in 1960s Israel, a boy, a matchmaker, and an eclectic group of people come together as the boy learns lessons in love, writing and, mostly, in growing up.

Crime after Crime A profoundly moving documentary focusing on a legal battle to free Debbie Peagler, a woman imprisoned in California for over a quarter of a century because of a connection to an abusive boyfriend. The battle is waged on her behalf by two rookie attorneys, one of whom is an orthodox Jew.

David This is the story of Daud, an eleven-year old Muslim boy growing up in Brooklyn. As the son of the Imam of the local mosque, he has to juggle his father’s high expectations, the dynamics of a conservative family, and being different. Is it really that different from the group of Jewish boys he watches attend the Yeshiva close to his home

Peep World An all-star cast gives new meaning to dysfunctional Jewish families in the wickedly funny Peep World. On the day of their father’s 70th birthday party, four siblings come to terms with the publication of a novel that exposes the family’s most intimate and shameful secrets.

Restoration 2011 Sundance Film Festival winner of the World Cinema Screenwriting Award. Restoration, is an elegant Israeli drama in which “restoration” is both the core of the film and a metaphor for the attempts to repair fraying family relationships.

La Rafle (The Round up) La Rafle is a wrenching, dramatic re-creation of the Vichy regime's imprisonment of 13,000 Parisian Jews in 1942.

* * * * * The Stamford Jewish Community Center boasts a wide variety of social, educational and recreational programs.  JCC membership, events and programs are open to everyone, regardless of race or religion.