Arts Entertainment Jewish Film Festival From Celluloid To Synagogue Do film fats really build Jewish identity? • ELUL ELIA NICHOLAS, JOE BERKOFSKY Jewish Telegraphic Agency TONY FRANK AGOS INT THE STAFF WISH OUR CUSTOMERS FRIENDS A VERY F FALTHY AND HAPPY PASSOVER! 0 704970 6066 MAPLE, North of Orchard Lake Rd. 248-851-0805 3 FOOD & SPIRITS JOE AND HELMA BERNARDI AND FAMILY WISH ALL OUR FRIENDS A VERY HAPPY PASSOVER 118 W. WALLED LAKE DRIVE, CORNER PONTIAC TRAIL • (248) 624-1033 WALLED LAKE BEST WISHES TO OUR CUSTOMERS & FRIENDS FOR A HEALTHY & HAPPY PASSOVER!! 4/11 2003 100 4052 Haggerty • Walled Lake • (248) 360-0190 n a Sunday in November, 1,200 people at the vintage Coolidge Corner Cinema in Brookline, Mass., nibbled Jewish-flavored barbecued wings. Film screenings sandwiched around the chicken, coleslaw and cornbread included Shalom, Tall and Kinky Friedman: Proud To Be an A From El Paso. Those two documentaries about Jews and the South were among dozens of offerings at the 14th annual Boston Jewish Film Festival. Though not exactly glatt kosher, the films — and meat — were "a fun way to do something more" at the festival, Executive Director Sara Rubin says. Perhaps much more, when it comes to filling Jews' appetite for greater iden- tity, according to a new report by the Jewish Outreach Institute in New York. The study, "Can Watching a Movie Lead to Greater Jewish Affiliation?" insists that the burgeoning Jewish film .festival scene holds not only big box- office potential but the possibility of moving unaffiliated Jews "along the continuum of Jewish involvement." Outreach Goals The institute examined 46 festivals. One-quarter of them are independent- ly run, while the others have some kind of sponsorship from Jewish insti- tutions or organizations, such as Jewish community centers or federations. "Film festivals serve as an entryway into the Jewish community," institute spokesman Paul Golin says. For no Jewish obligation or commit- ment stricter than the price of admis- sion — and the report urges discounts — any Jew can explore new Jewish worlds in the anonymity of a darkened movie theater. Hannah Greenstein, the Jewish Outreach Institute's program officer and co-author of the film festival report, says festivals should view their audiences the way advertisers would target buyers. "Jewish film festivals must have an outreach goal, they must seek out marketing opportunities to the unaffil- iated or the disengaged," she says. Those opportunities are booming. The pioneering Jewish film fest, launched in 1980 in San Francisco, has spawned more than 60 similar events annually in the United States, from Fairbanks to Philadelphia. Another half dozen are held in Canada, and about two dozen globally, from London to Hong Kong to Sao Paulo, Brazil. In one sure sign that the festivals have arrived, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture sponsors an annual Jewish film festival conference. The foundation also receives up to 70 applicants each year for the $150,000 it awards annually for Jewish docu- mentary filmmaking. Jewish "film festivals are one signal of a Jewish renaissance" culturally, says Richard Siegel, the foundation's executive director. "They're multiplying, so clearly they're hitting a responsive chord." The box office is heating up too, opening the doors to even wider Jewish involvement, the report says. San Francisco has grown into the biggest event, attracting 34,700 people watching nearly 50 films in 2002. Toronto is next with some 15,000 people seeing more than 60 films, while Boston drew a record 13,000 people last year, up _ 18 percent from the previous year. Among the larger festivals, Boston has grown from 10 films at its incep- tion to last year's edition, which fea- tured 45 films from 14 countries and a $400,000 budget. The Boston film festival also hosts Jewish films throughout the rest of the year that attract some 10,000 viewers. Meaningful Participation Officially, the Boston festival aims to showcase the best contemporary films from around the world dealing with Jewish themes. But Rubin says the fes- tival also "pushes the envelope on what is Jewish" and hopes to spark debate about Jewish themes. "The festival is a comfortable place to be uncomfortable about your Jewishness," she says. This year's barbecue, at a hip art house, echoed the kind of nontradi- tional twist the Jewish Outreach Institute applauds as a creative way to promote Jewish interest. But Gail Quets, the institute's direc- tor of research and co-author of the study, says anyone expecting people to walk out of such events with a new Jewish identity is kidding himself.