FRESNO JEWISH FILM SERIES

Jewish films from all around the world...

 

January - April 2010

"Bad Faith"

Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 7:00PM

Clara and Ishmael are gorgeous, happy, in love and in Paris. How nice is that? Like many cosmopolitan Parisian couples, the fact that she is Jewish and he is Muslim barely crosses the minds of these oh-so-secular lovebirds...until Clara announces that she's pregnant. That's when the troubles start in this charming and timely romantic comedy whose title could have been "Guess Who's Coming to Shabbos Dinner?"

Though the premise is as old as Romeo and Juliet and as familiar as Meet the Parents, the Arab-Jewish frisson makes this film feel absolutely fresh. We're rooting for the couple - he (Roschdy Zem) a jazz music teacher, she (Cecile de France) a physical therapist - as they first must navigate the fear and disappointments of loved ones: Clara's parents, though not exactly observant, receive the news as a religious tragedy, while Ishmael's friends register it as a political earthquake. Suddenly baby names, circumcision and keeping Ramadan become flashpoints. Will Middle East politics break the couple apart? Can love really conquer all?

"Leaving The Fold"

and 

"Praying in Her Own Voice"

 

Saturday, February 6,2010 at 7:00pm.

 

“Leaving the Fold” is a documentary film about young Hassidic and ultra-Orthodox Jews in Montreal, New York and Israel who try to free themselves from a colorful yet repressed community because they can no longer   tolerate living in the constricted world in which they were born....

“Praying in Her Own Voice” - A struggle for the character of the Western Wall, this city’s iconic Jewish holy site and central place of worship, is under way, and it is being fought with prayer shawls and Torah scrolls.The Women of the Wall (WOW), who meet for prayers at the Kotel at the start of every Hebrew month, are at the vanguard of a feminist struggle in Orthodox Judaism and other more contemporary strains to adapt time-honored religious practice for the modern age. (Read New York Times article)