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Featuring experimental and independent films,
Ann Arbor festival hosts works with Jewish themes.
ERIN PODOLSKY
Special to the Jewish News
N
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www.detroitjewishnews.com
3/ 7
2003
76
Find out
ow in its 41st year, the Ann
Arbor Film Festival kicks
off the tenure of new direc-
tor Chrisstina Hamilton
with a slate that includes three
Holocaust documentaries from festival
juror Elida Schogt and a documentary
on daily life in Israel by Israeli film-
maker Avi Mograbi.
The A' fest is unlike most festivals
around the country in that it concen-
trates on experimental and independ-
ent films, most of which feature short
running times.
Steven Spielberg won't be in town to
catch The Great Yiddish Love — a
short starring Marlene Dietrich and
Zarah Leander assembled from
Hollywood, German UFA and Yiddish
film clips from the 1930s and '40s.
But in the past the festival has attract-
before your mother!
East Lansing fists
feature films for both
children and adults.
u
p the road from Ann Arbor sits
the University of Michigan's
counterpart in higher educa-
tion, Michigan State University, And
like Ann Arbor, East Lansing hosts its
own film festival in March, albeit a
few weeks later in the month.
The East Lansing Film Festival
(ELFF) focuses more on traditional sto-
rytelling than the Ann Arbor fest. It also
ed such film luminaries as Gus Van
Sant and University of Michigan alum
Lawrence Kasdan.
The festival, which includes more
than 150 films selected from a pool of
504 entries, runs March 11-16, with
awarding of prizes to take place on the
festival's last day. This year, 112 films are
in competition for awards, with another
50 to be screened in curated programs.
Special programs include a spotlight
on Japanese films; James Benning's
"California Trilogy," a series depicting
the filmmaker's interpretation of the
Golden State; and a documentary on
the subversive Weather Underground
group of the late 1960s and early '70s.
"Our mission is to celebrate film as
art and to really support the filmmak-
ers who are working to make that art.
We're looking for work that pushes
boundaries and is cutting edge," says
Hamilton, who took over direction of
the festival from longtime helmet
runs a separate festival for children.
Both the ELFF and the .East Lansing
Children's Film Festival (ELCFF) are in
their sixth year. And in an effort to
encourage local filmmaking, on its
final day- the ELFF presents the
"Michigan's Own" competition, which
features films at least 25 percent filmed
or produced instate.
In addition to the competition,
there is also a showcase for films
written, produced or directed by
Michigan natives.
This year's ELFF features two films
with Jewish themes.
Promises, which follows a group of
children in Jerusalem, both Israeli and
Palestinian, comes to the festival after
earning an Oscar nomination in 2002. -
Vicki Honeyman after spending three
years as managing assistant director.
After the festival week draws to a
close, a select group of films will join the
traveling festival tour that makes stops at
such venues as the Detroit Institute of
Arts and the Cleveland Cinematheque.
With an operating budget funded by
sponsorships and grants from organiza-
tions like the National Endowment for
the Arts, the festival uses a six-member
selection panel to narrow down the
submissions to selected entries.
A three-member jury views the com-
petition entrants and awards festival
honors, handing out $18,000 in prize
money to more than 30 films.
•
This year's jurors are Nancy
Andrews, an experimental filmmaker
from Maine; Philip Hoffman, a film-
maker and professor at York University
in Toronto; and Schogt.
Mr. Mograbi
One of the festival screenings that
Hamilton is most excited about is
Mograbi's film August: A Moment
Before the Eruption.
The Israeli filmmaker has made
films dealing with other issues in his
homeland before, including How I
Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Arik
Sharon and Happy Birthday Mr
A
scene
from Am. a Fountain Pen"
The festival will also screen Grief, a
short film by Hadar Freidlich about a
Jerusalem taxi driver dealing with the
death of his son in the Israeli army.
The ELCFF boasts "films from
around the World for children of all
ages." It more than lives up to that
billing with live action, animated