Arts&Life

fi
 lm

30 | SEPTEMBER 24 • 2020 

T

he Lenore Marwil Detroit Jewish 
Film Festival will be different in 
timing and delivery this year, but 
the content will be very much as originally 
planned before COVID-19 limited in-per-
son gatherings. 
More than 20 films scheduled for the 
original theater showings can be seen dig-
itally Oct. 4-30, and there will be plenty of 
speakers as interviewed by Elliot Wilhelm, 
director and curator at the Detroit Film 
Theatre (DFT) and film instructor at 
Wayne State University. 
Films, often falling into overlapping cate-
gories, will be available for fans specifically 
seeking out drama, comedy, documentary, 
Israel and Holocaust themes. Examples, in 
order of category, include Budapest Noir, 

about a crime reporter investigating a mur-
der; Love in Suspenders, about romance the 
second time around; Back to Maracanã, 
about multi-generational shared experi-
ences; The Rabbi from Hezbollah, about a 
spy who becomes a rabbi; and The Mover, 
about a man who saved Jews from the 
Nazis.
“I realize this is a big change for our reg-
ular audience, and we hope that everyone 
gives us a chance and tries it out,
” said Eric 
Lumberg, who has been festival chairman 
for seven years and is a longtime fan of 
independent and foreign films.
“Given the circumstances, we are devel-
oping a new kind of festival that I think 
people will love. Our committee watches 
between 100 and 150 films depending on 

PHOTOS COURTESY OF JCC

This year, view fi
 lms digitally at home Oct. 4-30.

SUZANNE CHESSLER CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Jewish
 Film Fest

for the
Get Ready

Mossad!

Abe
Chichinette: The Accidental Spy

Here are some notable highlights 
from this year’
s selection:
Incitement: This provocative 
Israeli historical drama is set in 
the days leading up to the 1995 
assassination of Prime Minister 
Yitzhak Rabin, and follows Yigal 
Amir, the Israeli right-wing extrem-
ist who committed the atrocity. It 
was selected as the country’
s Best 
International Feature Film entry for 
the 2020 Oscars.
Abe: For more lighthearted, 
family-friendly fare, check out 
this comedy about a half-Israeli, 
half-Palestinian boy in Brooklyn 
(played by Noah Schnapp from 
Stranger Things) who sets out to 
unite his family through the power 
of fusion cuisine.
Chichinette: The Accidental Spy: 
This moving documentary pro-
files Marthe Cohn, a 98-year-old 
French Jewish woman who reveals 
her secret past as a spy in Nazi 
Germany. Posing as a German 
nurse, Cohn gathered information 
on planned Nazi strikes and snuck 
the details to French intelligence 
following the liberation of Paris.
City of Joel: The New York village 
of Kiryas Joel has a huge popula-
tion of Yiddish-speaking, ultra-Or-
thodox Satmar Chasidic Jews … 
and their numbers grow by leaps 
and bounds every year. This doc-
umentary profiles the local power 
struggles over land and resources 
between the religious and secular 
communities.
Mossad!: This goofy spy spoof 
does for Israeli national security 
what Get Smart and Austin Powers 
did for America’
s secret agents: 
milks the whole enterprise for 
(kosher) laughs. In fact, American 
spoof legend David Zucker 
(Airplane!) is a credited consultant 
on the film.

ANDREW LAPIN EDITOR

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To See? We’
ve 
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