20 April 18 • 2019
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Questions?
Email Sy Manello at
smanello@renmedia.us
or call him at 248-351-5147.
Free Listing Submission
Deadline is May 10, 2019.
The Jewish News will honor all Jewish
students who are graduating this spring from
Michigan high schools in our Cap & Gown
Yearbook 2019, which will be published
in the May 25 issue.
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All listings must be submitted online.
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friends from West Bloomfield,
MSU and work. It’
s moments like
that that make LA feel like a warm,
welcoming second home.
Still, I miss Michigan every day.
I do hope to go back and produce
another indie feature there soon.
WHAT MOVIES HAVE
YOU WORKED ON?
I have worked on Youth in Revolt
and Miley Cyrus’
LOL as well as
Iron Man 3, Batman v Superman
and two Transformers films.
NEW MONEY DIRECTOR JASON KOHL
IS ALSO FROM MICHIGAN. HOW DID
YOU TWO CONNECT?
Jason and I had done a short film in
2012 and, in 2014, he approached
me about producing his first
feature-length film. It’
s crazy to
think that was almost five years ago
… It’
s amazing how long the process
is.
We filmed in Lansing and the
Detroit area in 2016. It was an
intense 21-day shoot with no
margin for error. It was tough —
we had to be focused and well
planned. I’
m really proud of what
we accomplished.
WHAT FEEDBACK HAVE YOU
RECEIVED FROM FILM FESTIVALS?
The response from film festivals has
been really great. This was the first
time I did the film festival thing.
At first, I was intimidated, but
people aren’
t there to be critical or
exclusive. Most just want to talk and
get to know other filmmakers.
We premiered New Money at
the Black Nights Film Festival in
Tallin, Estonia, in 2017. That was
pretty incredible. Here we have this
small movie that takes place in mid-
Michigan and we are screening it in
this Baltic country. You could tell
it was resonating beyond cultures,
which was really something to see.
Then, we premiered New Money
at the Newport Beach Film Festival
in 2018. And last fall, the film won
the Audience Choice Award for
Best Narrative Feature at the Indie
Memphis Film Festival.
Like any art, movies are
constantly humbling because you’
re
always going to have people who
don’
t like what you create. And
that can get to you and make you
question if it’
s something you
should be doing. I think festivals are
important because, from what I’
ve
experienced, people there are very
supportive.
At Memphis, someone came
up to me after our screening and,
knowing this was my first time
producing, told me they loved
the film and that I should keep
doing it. Those moments are really
necessary. ■
Davidoff continued from page 18
Elkus continued from page 18
What will students who take your
class walk away knowing?
OE: I’
m currently rummaging for
material for this course, trying
to weave together the threads of
Yiddishland to create the fullest por-
trait of this evasive place, a place that
exists in the summit between every
Yiddishist’
s imagination.
This will be a language and culture
course teaching Yiddish through
the artistic and political movements
of (mostly) 19th- and 20th-century
Ashkenazic Jews, giving students
the linguistic knowledge to fur-
ther unearth the Yiddish lexicon
for themselves. Subjects covered:
Yiddishland, Yiddish dialects,
Yiddish linguistic theories, Yiddish-
American slang, classics, satire,
folksongs, poetry, theater, film,
socialism, communism, anarchism,
Yiddish expressionism and intro-
spectivism, Yiddish and Hebrew,
Yiddish and German, and Yiddish
and Israel.
My hope is that students will be
properly inspired by this course to
both mine the relics of our Yiddish
past and forge our Yiddish future. I
believe if we understand Yiddish, we
understand our history and, without
exaggeration, we understand our-
selves. Yiddishland gets lonely and we
would love the company! Let culture
be the fuel for the vehicle of language
and language the road to the temple
of culture! ■
Classes will be Sundays in May (5,
12, 19 & 26) and June (2, 9, 16
& 23) from 2:30-3:30 p.m. at the
Downtown Synagogue. Everyone
is welcome. A $10 donation is
suggested. To register, send an
email to ollieelkus.gmail.com.