I nvinaccu
THE DETRO IT JEWISH NEWS
PHOTOS 4Y DANI EL LIPPITT
Days of
74
The Metropolitan
Film Festival
showcases the
award-winning
film.
LIZ STEVENS SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
acob Feldman approaches the Residential Care for Adults with Devel-
Western Wall on his first trip to opmental Disabilities), the local nonprofit
Jerusalem, reverently kisses the organization that provides support for the
ancient rock and moments later disabled and their families. But it's their
turns toward the camera that has universal humanity and their inspiring
courage, not their handicaps, that the film
been watching him.
"What did it mean to you, to be reflects most clearly.
"We're very big believers in the fact that
able to do this?" an off-screen voice
asks. The 53-year-old Feldman, these folks can speak for themselves, and
choking back emotion, removes his they've got something that's really worth
glasses and rubs his tearing eyes while hearing," says Victor. "You just have to lis-
the camera lingers. "I felt closer to God," he ten."
It took one meal to convince the film-
responds softly. "It's like a dream come
makers that Days of Joy was their artis-
true."
The scene lasts just a couple minutes, tic destiny.
In 1993, JARC invited Victor/Harder
but it captures the essence of what film-
makers Fran Victor and Bill Harder set out Productions Inc. to create a video high-
to do three years ago when they began work lighting the organization's transitional liv-
on the documentary Days of Joy. Complet- ing program. On an evening before they
ed last spring and awaiting its first public started shooting, the filmmakers visited
screening on Feb. 8, the film follows three the home of the three men who would be
developmentally disabled Jewish adults the film's primary subjects. Feldman, de-
making their first trip to Israel on the 1993 voutly religious and an employee of the Ira
Kaufman Chapel, was among them.
Miracle Mission. _
"So we had dinner," Victor recalls, "and
The stars of Days ofJoy — Feldman, Lor-
raine Schwartz and Harold Folkoff— are Jacob is just this wonderful, warm, gentle
all clients of JARC (Jewish Association for spirit, full of love and full of laughter and
-full of jokes, and we just fell in love with
him. When we had our next pre-production
meeting at JARC, we were saying, 'Gosh,
you know, he's going to Israel and what a
great (documentary) that would make' —
and Bill and I looked at each other... and
we decided what the hell."
The pair went to work researching pos-
sible funding sources, and almost immedi-
ately found an interested party in the
Bernard L. Maas
Fran Victor works on a
Foundation. A major
project in her editing
contributor to JARC,
room.
the foundation agreed
to pay the pair's travel expenses. "Three
weeks from the first contact with Maas,"
Harder says, "we were on the plane."
The initial idea for the documentary was
to focus solely on Feldman, but two days
into the trip Victor and Harder decided to
broaden the story. From the six JARC
clients on the Miracle Mission, the film-
makers chose to add the vivacious
Schwartz, 63, who lives independently in
Southfield, and the introspective Folkoff,
41, an avid public speaker despite a diffi-
cult speech impediment.
The 26-minute film, culled from 15 hours
of tape Harder took over 10 days, tags along
as its stars float in the Dead Sea, plant trees
in the desert, partake in Silly String fights,
pray at Yad Vashem, and, in Schwartz's
case, celebrates a bat mitzvah on Masada.
"We got there, and we knew we had a great
story," says Victor. "But we weren't sure
what was going to happen, so we just shot
everything."
The three subjects talk candidly before
the camera about their disabilities, their
families and their everyday lives: "I feel
everyone is losing his or her faith in one
way or another," Folkoff says at one point.
"I just want to get myself revived, re-edu-