At The Movies
It's Oscar Time!
Oscar nominations have a Jewish flavor.
TOM TUGEND
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
A
film on the Nazi-era rescue of refugee
children, most of them Jewish, is one of
five nominees for an Oscar in the docu-
mentary feature category.
on April 2. See next week's Jewish News for an inter-
view with the filmmakers.)
The Kindertransport film also traces the children's
reception in Great Britain and their lives after the
war. Britain agreed to accept the children at a time
when most other doors were closed to Jewish
refugees. Entry was limited to children between 2
Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the
Kindertransport chronicles the rescue of some 10,000
children from Nazi-dominated Germany, Austria
and Czechoslovakia in the 18 months leading up to
World War II.
The Kindertransport film is one of several Jewish-
and Holocaust-themed nominations. The winners
will be announced at the Academy Awards presenta-
tion March 25 on ABC.
One Day Crossing, about a Jewish woman who
poses as a Christian in 1944 Budapest to protect her
family, was nominated in the category of live action
short film.
Jan Hrebejk's Divided We Fall, a contender for best
foreign-language film, is a Czech dark comedy about
a childless couple who hides its former neighbor
from the Nazis after the young man escapes from a
death camp. (Israel's entry for best foreign-language
film, Time of Favor, was not among the five films
nominated in its category.)
Into the Arms of Strangers is up against Scottsboro:
An American Tragedy, a documentary about nine
black men on trial for rape during the Depression
and the controversial Jewish attorney who defended
them. (The film will air on Detroit Public Television
and 17, however, which meant their parents had to
stay behind.
"I am euphoric," said producer Deborah
Oppenheimer, whose mother was one of the trans-
ported children.
"I have talked to the survivors of the transport fea-
tured in the film, and they are thrilled. The nomina-
tion means that Into the Arms of Strangers will be
widely shown, including in many schools."
Director and writer Mark Jonathan Harris
ascribed the nomination to the subject's universal
appeal in showing the traumatic separation of chil-
dren and parents.
Harris previously directed The Long Way Home, a
documentary about Holocaust survivors; it won an
Oscar for its producers — the Simon Wiesenthal
Center — in 1997.
Harris also won an Academy Award in 1968 for
the short film The Redwoods.
In addition, two non-Jewish actresses are nominat-
ed for portraying tormented Jewish characters.
Ellen Burstyn is among the contenders for best
actress for her role as a Jewish widow spiraling into
drug addiction in Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a
Dream. Marcia Gay Harden is up for best supporting
actress as Jackson Pollock's Jewish wife, Lee Krasner,
in Pollock.
❑
A
A scene from "Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the
Kindertransport," nominated for best documental) , feature.
The 73rd Annual Academy Awards airs 8 p.m.
Sunday, March 25, on ABC.
MMV, Vgar
And The Winners Are
Local experts talk about the Oscars.
AUDREYBECKER
Special to the Jewish News
T
he Jewish News asked several local per-
sonalities steeped in the world of film to
offer their insights into the upcoming
Academy Awards presentation. Here is
what they had to say.
David Magidson, professor of theater at Wayne
State University and director of the Detroit Jewish
Film Festival:
"Although the first part of the year didn't seem to
have as many good movies as we would have
thought, the second part really had some terrific
movies, and I think all the nominees are good.
"For me, I think the best movie of the year is Traffic.
3/23
2001
74
It has a stylistic sense of its content that you don't see in
movies, particularly Hollywood movies. And this one
has sort of captured a spirit of the independent movies.
It's really a terrific piece, and also important in terms of
[asking] how America deals with its drug problems.
"I really like movies that have stories, and that one
has a compelling story. The fact that the story is unre-
solved is what moves it over to social content. In other
words, it's a story that we don't know the end of yet."
Sue Marx of Sue Marx Films Inc., 1988 winner of an
Academy Award for Young at Heart and director of 150
corporate, proniotional, political and educational films,
videos and television spots:
"We've been on a movie marathon since
WINNERS on page 76
Juliette Binoche in "Chocolat": "I thought it was
an absolutely exquisite film for all the right reasons,"
says Sue Marx.