Through A Jewish Lens Screening Schedule --The Jewish Community Center's Second Annual Lenore Marwil Jewish Film Festival takes place April 30-May 7 at the United Artists Theaters in Commerce Township. - SUNDAY, APRIL 30 1 p.m.: Shtick, Shmaltz and Shtereotypes. Guest commentator/program creator Murray Glass will speak on Jews in film. 8 p.m.: The festival's main attraction, The Assistant, 4 a new film of the Pulitzer-Prize-winning Bernard 1 Malamud novel. Producer Daniel Petrie will speak. 4 MONDAY, MAY 1 5 p.m.: L.A. Mohel. Mohel/Cantor Samuel Greenbaum will speak. A screening of The Line King, a film about the life of legendary cartoonist Al Hirschfeld, follows. 8 p.m.: The Poet and the Con examines the life of a Jewish gangster. Director/producer/writer Eric Trules will speak. TUESDAY, MAY 2 5 p.m.: Yidl in the Middle reflects on the filmmak- er's life growing up in Des Moines, Iowa. A panel of Michigan Jews will reflect on the film and their own experiences. Following, a screening of Round Eyes in the Middle Kingdom explores Jewish life in China. 8 p.m.: A special Yom HaShoah presentation, After the Truth is a new German film that recalls the Holocaust from Dr. Josef Mengele's point of view. Screenwriters Christopher and Kathleen Riley will 4 discuss the film. I I I SUNDAY, MAY 7 1 p.m.: Special family presentation for children age 1 4-13 and their parents features Natie the Pirate, In the Month of Kislev, The Hanukkah Soldier, A World to Come, Promises, Silence and Where the Wild Things Are. Special guest storyteller Corinne Stavish will narrate the program. 3 p.m.: Special family presentation for children age 4-13 and their parents (second showing). 5 p.m.: With a Family Like Mine ... is a modern Jewish comedy that looks at family. Producer/writer Todd Logan will intro- duce the film and host a discussion with director David Seman after the screening. 8 p.m.: Women, the festi- val finale in honor of Jewish Heritage Week, examines turn-of-the-cen- tury Sephardim in 1 "Shtick, Shmaltz and Shtereotypes": Palestine. Afterward, a A century of Jews in films. panel featuring Rabbi WEDNESDAY, MAY 3 5 p.m.: In Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour, the Barbie doll's influence on American culture is explored. Then, Dealers Among Dealers follows and looks at Jews in the diamond business. Director Gaylen Ross will lead a discussion following the film. 8 p.m.: Chronicle of Love explores domestic violence in Israel. A panel from Jewish Family Service's Shalom Bayit domestic violence project will conduct a discussion. THURSDAY, MAY 4: 5 p.m.: Generation Exodus explores contemporary Jewish identity. Following, is the film Treyf, an autobi- ographical documentary that bridges filmmakers Alisa Lebow's and Cynthia Madansky's Jewish identity with their lives as lesbians and women. Madansky will lead a pre-film discus- sion at 4 p.m. 8 p.m.: Angst looks at humor Leonardo Bitran, and the Holocaust, followed which explores family ties. Professor Ruth Behar and members of the by Nobody's Business, Sephardic Jewish community will discuss the film. There will be no screenings on May 5 and 6 , 'Dealers Among Dealers' 11" 4/21 2000 88 In the diamond business, $8 million can change hands in a matter of sec- onds -- without the buyer even see- ing the merchandise. It all happens in the space of a phone call in Dealers Among Dealers, a documentary by New York film- maker Gaylen Ross. Over several years, Ross followed the mostly Jewish dealers, cutters and assorted hangers-on who populate the dia- mond trade On the east side of Manhattan. "Buy me even if you can't afford me," challenges one dealer from under his imposing bushy brows. Another glides through the streets in a chauffeur-driven limousine. A few years later, he's the one grubbing for tips behind the steering wheel. But he can't stay away, and, by the end of the film, he's dealing again. The film is a lively look at a cul- ture that has been shrouded in mys- tery. Long thought to be a province only of the fervently Orthodox, the diamond business today includes everyone from the secular to the Chasidic. And, as Jewish sons of dia- mond brokers seek more sober, less stressful pursuits, the business is gradually seeing East Indians, South American, Iranian and Asian dealers as well. In offices or out on the street, deals' are finalized with a handshake and a "mazer Merchants sift hand- fuls of diamonds into an old-fash- ioned scale, as if they were measuring out a couple pounds of lentils. And meanwhile, back in the workrooms, Chasidic stonecutters sing Yiddish melodies as they work, in a scene WWWW, NNW, \NS, beyond Walt Disney's wildest dreams. In a rare moment of intro- spection, one mer- chant ponders whether diamonds themselves have any intrinsic value outside of their beauty. "What's a stone — a piece of car- bon," he says. "It's a matter of supply "Dealers Among and demand." Dealers": In the case of Demystifting the diamonds, though, diamond business. these stones seem to have the capaci- ty to bewitch everyone who works with them. — Diana Lieberman StaifWriter ,,,,,,,,, WWWWWWWWWWWWWWW. Dealers Among Dealers will be shown Wednesday, May 3, pre- ceded by Barbie Nation: An Unauthorized Tour. The screen- ings begin at 5 p.m. Dealers director Gaylen Ross will lead a discussion about the dia- mond business.