ertainment Arts Si Jewish Film Festival `Esther Kahn' -1113 LENORE BEARWIL sh Film Festival SCHEDUL E UNITED ARTISTS THEATRES 14 Mile and Haggerty Rds. Commerce Township MICHIGAN THEATRE 603 E. Liberty St. Ann Arbor Sunday, April 27 The IComediant- liast Dance Esther Kahn The Sky Is Falling Sunday, May 4 God Is Great, nn Not Monday, April 28 Bronstein's Children Leo and Claire 12:30 p.m. 3 p.m. 5 p.m. 8 p.m. 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 29 My Dear Clara and 2 p.m. Choosing Exile The Last Jewish Town and 5 p.m. Salaam Shalom 8 p.m. Ruthie and Connie . Wednesday, April 30 Israel in a Time of Terror and A Bomb in the Basement 5 p.m. 8 p.m. an Schmelvis 10 p.m. Thursday, May 1 2 p.m. A Tickle in the Heart 5 p.m. The White Rose 8 p.m. God Is Great, I'm Not Saturday, May 3 The Burial Society Missing You and Execution 9:45 p.m. Sunday, May 4 Tikkun and Company Jasmine The Last Letter Th2 Alive and I Love You Gloomy Sunday 12:30 p.m. 3 p.m. 5 p. m . 8 p.m. Monday, May 5 Skating Through the Sand and 5 p.m. The Holy Cup 8 p.m. A &umpet in the Wadi Tuesday, May 6 Strange Fruit and Keep on Walkin' Monsieur Batignole 2003 96 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Monday, May 5 The Last Letter The Sky Is Falling 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Tuesday, May 6 Israel in a Time of Terror and A Bomb in the Basement 5 p.m. Skating Through the Sand and 8 p.m. The Holy Cup Wednesday, May 7 Schmelvis Gloomy Sunday 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Thursday, May 8 The White Rose Nowhere in Africa 5 p.m. 8 p.m. BIRMINGHAM 8 211 S. Old Woodward Birmingham Tuesday, April 29 Monsieur Batignole Gloomy Sunday 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 30 A Trumpet in the Wadi God Is Great, I'm Not 5 p.m. 8 p.m. Thursday, May 1 Rosenzweig's Freedon The Sky Is Falling 5 p.m. 8 p.m. THE PALACE THEATRE 300 Oullette Ave. Windsor Thursday, May 1 A Trumpet in the Wadi The Burial Society 5 p.m. 8 p.m. s 1944, the family consisted of cultural even minutes into Summer Jews who celebrated the holidays but Esther Kahn Phoenix's audition for — about an 1890s Jew who wants did not attend synagogue. In 1968, Arlyn, weary of her con- to become an actress — director Arnaud ventional secretarial job, left her Jewish Desplechin hastily left the room. neighborhood, according to Us maga- "The casting directors were like, zine; hitching west, she was picked up `OK, thank you,'" recalls the exuber- by John Bottom, the lapsed Catholic ant, almond-eyed Phoenix, sister to who would become Phoenix's father. actors Joaquin and the late River. Summer, the youngest of their five "I walked away, but then I just start- children, was born after the family ed sobbing and I ran back up the fled a Venezuela-based Christian cult is the role stairs. I cried, 'Esther Kahn and moved in with Arlyn's parents in I've been waiting for. This can't be my Florida. last chance." During her unconventional child- Which is when the casting directors hood, Summer-traveled the country explained the bizarre reason for Desplechin's hasty exit: Phoenix looked exactly like the London Jewish immigrant he'd envisioned as his heroine. Her 19th-century photo hung in his Paris office. The director hadn't left the room because he had been disinterested — he'd run outside to be sick. 'Arnaud is pretty intense," con- cedes Phoenix, who nevertheless had to prove herself in three more grueling auditions before landing the role in Desplechin's moody, slow-moving film, which screens 5 p.m. Sunday, April 27, in Commerce Township. She'd all but given up hope when the call came from France seven months later — in winter 1998 — the same day she learned Joaquin had been cast in Gladiator. "Will you be my Esther "Esther Kahn" A search for identity. Kahn?" Desplechin said in his thick French accent. A stunned Phoenix was on a plane to in a motor home and, after her fami- London that night. Five days later, ly moved to Los Angeles, began per- production began. forming on the streets with her sib- The part was worth the wait. "I'd lings. She ate strictly vegan food, fallen in love with Esther," says starred in TV sitcoms, was home- Phoenix (The Believer, The Laramie schooled and in her teens worked in Project), now 25. her father's veggie restaurant in "I identified with her. At the time, I Costa Rica. was also an actress who was silently Her maternal grandparents were a waiting for my chance. I just needed solid presence throughout her an opportunity to prove it, to show it, nomadic life: "Though my mother to be it." became Christian for a time, that During the exhausting 3 1/2-month never mattered to them," she says. shoot, Phoenix drew on her mother's "While Judaism was important to Russian-Hungarian Jewish roots to my grandparents, they were very open- play Kahn, who toils in her immi- minded. My grandmother died two grant family's sweatshop before enter- months before I went off to make ing the theater. Esther Kahn, and I felt like I was really "The Jewish slum life of London's doing the movie for her. East End was not unlike the Lower "I was just so proud to bring the East Side in the 1890s," she says. Jewish part of me out in that film." By the time Phoenix's mom, Arlyn — Naomi Pfefferman Dunetz, was born in the Bronx in