You Don't Have To Be Filmish F North American Premieres World Premiere Nightfather (7'ralievader) The Return of Sarah's Daughters Netherlands, 1995 USA, 1997 Director Marcia Jarmel's secular upbringing compelled her to It's worth a trip to Toronto for the second-largest Jewish film festival in North America. LYNNE KONSTANTIN STAFF WRITER Sara — The Diary of the Free World Romania, 1995 Award-winning film of a young projectionist screening newsreel footage, prompting tragic memories of a lost love. Canadian Premieres Detroit's own Harvey Ovshin- sky's documentary of Michigan artist and sculptor Arthur Schneider, who is diagnosed with cancer. Harvey Ovshinsky will attend. Screenings The Passenger — Welcome to Germany Germany, 1987 Starring Tony Curtis. An Amer- ican Jewish director returns to Germany to shoot a film about the making of an anti-Semitic film by the Nazis. Jerusalem: An Occupation Set in Stone? USA I Palestinian, 1995 Explores Israeli-Palestinian bor- der issues. Director Marty Rosenbluth will attend. Sabbath in Amsterdam Netherlands, 1932 This 12-minute rarely seen film — director unknown — weaves a fascinating impression of pre- World War II Jewish life. COURTESY OF MONGREL MEDI A search for her Jewish roots. The film also documents the search- es of two other Jewish women: one Chasidic, the other a lesbian whose lifestyle poses difficulty in the Orthodox community to which she is drawn. Marcia Jarmel will attend. or a mere five hours by land — 45 min- utes by air — metro Detroiters, deprived of a Jewish film festi- val of their own, can attend a world-class festival not too far from home, the second largest one in North America, in fact. The Toronto Jewish Film Fes- tival is celebrating its fifth an- niversary this year, and, through the magic of film, the festival will visit Jews from 13 countries through feature-length and short films — an- imated, documentary and fiction — with one common theme: Each film expresses an aspect of the di- versity of the Jewish experience. Shlomo Schwartz- berg, the festival's director of program- ming, calls this year in Jewish film "an em- barrassment of riches that had made it truly difficult for us to include every worthwhile movie we saw." In the end, he and Helen Zukerman, producer and co-founder of the festival, decided upon a total of 29 films to be screened, including one world premiere and two North Ameri- can premieres. And remember to linger before and after each screening: Almost every film features a swarm of di- rectors, actors and screenwriters showing up to discuss their work. The festival's motto? "You don't have to be filmish." The following are highlights of the 29 films to be screened May 1-8. Mr. Mani Israel, 1996 A five-part mini- series based on A.B. Yehoshua's novel. Di- rector Ram Loevy will attend. Zahor (Remember) France, 1996 Sara Morgenstern was born on Feb. 7, 1925. She was deported on Sept. 21, 1942, on convoy No. 35. She is among the Holocaust victims shown in the North American premiere of France's Zahor (Remember). A disturbed Holocaust survivor's traumatic effect on his wife and young children is remembered years later when news of his death reaches his adult daughter. Gene Siskel said, "You won't eas- ily forget Zahor." In an award- winning film essay on the victims and survivors of the Holocaust, the filmmaker sim- ply shows pre-war photos of fam- ilies and children at rest and play, with brief narration. Exodus 1947 USA, 1996 The true story of the Exodus, the ship carrying Holocaust sur- vivors that tried to get through the British blockade of Palestine. Exodus chief mate Bernie Marks will attend. Off the Wall: A Creative Journey USA, 1996 The Epstein brothers were the klezmorim in Brooklyn in their day. A Tickle in the Heart recounts the resurgence of their career.