Based on the memoir of Marga Spiegel, this powerful World War II drama portrays how courageous German farmers in Westphalia risked their lives to hide a Jewish family. Escaping the last of the death camp deportations, the Spiegel family is offered safe hiding for nearly three years by salt-of-the-earth German peasants who reject fascism and put themselves at grave risk without hesitation. Danger lurks constantly as SS officers, Nazi youth groups, and frightened citizens threaten to expose the refugees and their protectors. Today, the names of these courageous farmers are immortalized at the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel.

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Esther Blueburger has thick glasses, parents who don’t understand her, a pet duck, and no friends at her exclusive school where her classmates are mostly identical-looking blondes. She and her twin brother are approaching their bar/bat mitzvah, a rite of passage that coincides with Esther’s inner turmoil. When befriended by Sunni, who goes to the local public school, Esther begins to blossom under the affirmation of friendship. Hilariously, she goes undercover and pretends to be a Swedish exchange student at Sunni’s school, hanging out with Sunni and her posse of “bad” girls and spending time with Sunni’s super-hip mom. On the road to greater self-awareness, Esther encounters kissing, sex, class differences, questions of loyalty, and an indestructible urge to be herself.

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Photographer, painter, filmmaker, poet, essayist, and philosopher, Man Ray was an extraordinary man with extraordinary talents. One of the primary leaders of the American modernist movement, Ray became acquainted with artists Alfred Stieglitz and Marcel Duchamp, joined the avant-garde, conceived Dada as a form of artistic anarchy, and forever changed the course of American art. Stuart traces the artist from his Jewish roots and the remarkable legacy of his early beginnings in New York to his distinctive achievements in Paris, and finally considers the impact of his work on future generations.

The first Israeli film directed by an Israeli Ethiopian, ZRUBAVEL offers an authentically fresh take on the generational/cultural divide separating traditionally minded fathers and their rapidly assimilating children. Gite Zrubavel is a proud, dignified man employed as a street sweeper in his Ethiopian immigrant community in Israel. Although the status he enjoyed in Africa is gone, the devout Gite is determined to see his children succeed in their new culture. But son Gili’s drift into street crime threatens to undermine all his efforts, while daughter Almaz’s taboo romance with her first cousin dashes his hopes for her future. Even beloved grandson Itzhak—child to remaining daughter Hana and her rigidly devout husband—breaks free of expectations by making a film that captures the reality of life in their poor but animated neighborhood, reflecting Beru’s own inspiration for this very personal film.

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What’s a super-sized, aspiring Israeli chef who’s just been kicked out of his weight-watching support group to do about his ever-increasing girth? Pursue a career in Sumo wrestling, of course! Fed up with society’s (his mother’s!) notion of the ideal body shape, Herzl, who weighs in at 340 pounds, enlists his mysterious Japanese boss to train him and several large friends in the ancient martial art of Sumo. In this offbeat comedy about self-revelation, our shape-challenged friends learn to shed societal norms and love themselves, and each other, just as they are. “[A MATTER OF SIZE] follows its own tender and funny (and Jewish) path from body shame to body celebration, and from loneliness to love.”—San Francisco Jewish Film Festival.

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At the end of the 19th century, an ugly duckling named Gertrudis is born only feet from the new world as a ship of immigrants docks in Buenos Aires. She grows up there in a colony of Argentinean Jews. Shy and self-conscious, she fashions herself almost invisible, even hiding her face in photographs. After she is married off to an older, wealthy Jewish rancher, Gertrudis meets expectations and raises a family, until the arrival of a nomadic French photographer with an uncompromising vision allows Gertrudis to see herself for the first time. CAMERA OBSCURA is a lyrical film full of visual innovation, including original Surrealist-inspired photographs and films, hand-drawn color animation, and sequences drawn from the characters’ imaginations.

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“MARY AND MAX is unique. A clay animation by Academy Award–winning filmmaker Adam Elliott (HARVIE KRUMPET), it tells the simple story of a 20-year pen-pal friendship between two very different people: Mary Dinkle, a chubby, lonely 8-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne, and Max Horowitz, a 44-year-old Jewish man who is severely obese, suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome, and lives an isolated life in New York City. It is very much a triumph of emotion, insight, and eccentricity—a complete delight. This desire for acceptance and love amid the pain of existence is masterfully narrated by Barry Humphries and fleshed out by the voices of Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toni Collette. This film is proof of why we go to the movies and a truly exceptional portrait of compassion and love.”—Sundance Film Festival.

Mature Audiences.

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Life is good for Toronto teenager Ben Spektor. The girl he likes might just be interested, his hockey team is playoff-bound, and his idol Bob Dylan is coming to town. He even gets along with his sometimes-taciturn Russian émigré father and peacekeeping mother. Then, an awkward loan of just five dollars to a friend sets in motion a chain of events that threatens to upset his idyllic existence. The sobering repercussions of seemingly innocent actions force Ben to self-discovery and the realization that the world is not entirely his oyster. Bezmozgis’ coming-of-age story set in 1980s Canada is told with a wit and wisdom that insightfully entertains.

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French stars Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant headline this charming romantic comedy about a middle-aged Jewish French couple with an empty nest in Paris and perhaps a new nest in the Promised Land. The husband is Alain, a prominent gynecologist and an assimilated Jew. His wife is beautiful, bourgeois Gisèle, who converted when she married Alain. Now Gisèle wants to reinvent herself as an Israeli. How difficult can that be? Hilariously difficult, it turns out, as the cultural obstacles the couple faces threaten to force them apart, their upper-middle-class ambitions melting in the Mideastern sun.

Support provided by the Young Patrons of the Portland Art Museum.

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Nadjari has fashioned an extraordinary documentary on the evolution of Israel’s cinema and its parallels with the country’s history. Clips and interviews with directors, scholars, and critics—including Joseph Cedar, Amos Gitai, and Moshe Mizrahi—explore early Zionist propaganda films, ethnic comedies aimed at Sephardic immigrants, political films of the ´80s, and more.

Part I covers 1933-1978. Part II covers 1979-2005. Shown with one intermission.

Nili Yosha, a 13th generation native of Israel and the daughter of independent filmmakers Yaky and Dorit Yosha, will introduce the film and facilitate a short Q&A at the intermission.

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The delivery of a battered suitcase to Fumiko Ishioka at the Tokyo Holocaust Museum begins the true-life mystery that became the subject of Karen Levine’s best-selling book, “Hana’s Suitcase.” The suitcase came from the Auschwitz Museum and had Hana Brady’s name roughly painted on it. Weinstein’s masterful film follows Fumiko’s quest to discover the details of Hana’s life. Finding Hana’s brother George in Toronto, Fumiko learns that as small children in Czechoslovakia they were incarcerated for being Jewish after the Nazis invaded in 1939. Voices of children from Japan, Canada, and the Czech Republic narrate Hana’s story and are woven around dramatic recreations to create a moving film about power and hope.

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An Israeli boy wrestles with real-life ethical dilemmas and his love for his father in ELI & BEN, a bittersweet coming-of-age drama that will win the hearts of teen and adult audiences alike. Mischievous 12-year-old Eli (Yuval Shevach) has his sheltered world turned upside-down after his father (Lior Ashkenazi), a city architect in the upscale Herzliya community, is charged with taking bribes. News of the scandal makes its way to the school playground and national newspapers. Into this void of disillusionment steps police inspector Amos (Tzahi Grad), who presents sympathy but uncertain motives. Forced to question everything he believes in, Eli sets out to restore the reputation of his father while struggling with questions of trust and friendship.

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