10th Annual Film Festival

Schedule:

May 1, 2024

Irena’s Vow at 7pm

Director: Louise Archambault

Year: 2023

Run Time: 121 minutes

Country: Canada / Poland

Language: English

Genre: Drama

Warsaw, 1939: when the Nazis invade Poland, nurse Irena Gut (Sophie Nélisse) is displaced and forced to work in support of the German war effort, eventually assigned to run the home of a Nazi commandant (Dougray Scott). Instead of following the path of least resistance and gambling on her status and ethnicity to keep her safe, Gut risks everything to save a dozen Jewish refugees from persecution and murder, sheltering them under her boss’s nose. With anti-semitism proudly elbowing its way back onto the national stage, it sadly feels urgent and necessary to give this story a dramatic spotlight

May 2, 2024

The Catskills at 7pm

Director: Lex Gillespie

Year: 2024

Run Time: 90 minutes

Country: US

Language: English

Genre: Documentary

An offbeat, comedic journey that delights and surprises, Karaoke follows Tova and Meir, a standard aging couple with 46 years of marriage and two grown daughters. They live a comfortable life, with Meir currently on sabbatical from his academic professorship, and Tova running a boutique shop. Their lives get a jolt of excitement from their neighbor from above, Itzik, who invites them to his penthouse for karaoke nights. Tova and Meir fall hard for Itzik’s energetic lifestyle. They enter into a competition amongst their other neighbors and soon themselves, trying to win Itzik’s attention. Sasson Gabay (The Band’s Visit) as Meir, Lior Ashkenazy (Footnote, Late Marriage) as Itzik and Rita Shukrun as Tova are the dream cast of this unique comedic drama

May 4, 2024

Less Than Kosher at 7pm

Director: Daniel Am Rosenberg

Year: 2023

Run Time: 66 minutes

Country: Canada

Language: English

Genre: Musical Comedy

At 20, Viv was a promising young singer. At 30, her failing music career has forced her back into her mother’s basement. But when this self proclaimed Bad Jew lands ***-backwards into a job as a Cantor at her family’s synagogue, she’s thrown into a wild ride. It’s “Shiva Baby” meets “A Star is Born.” Modern Jewish wit and Hebrew Electro-Pop.

May 5, 2024

Remembering Gene Wilder at 3:00 PM

Director: Ron Frank

Year: 2023

Run Time: 92 minutes

Country: USA

Language: English

Genre: Documentary

This loving tribute to Gene Wilder celebrates his life and legacy as the comic genius behind an extraordinary string of film roles, from his first collaboration with Mel Brooks in The Producers, to the enigmatic title role in the original Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, to his inspired on-screen partnership with Richard Pryor in movies like Silver Streak. It is illustrated by a bevy of touching and hilarious clips and outtakes, never-before-seen home movies, narration from Wilder’s audiobook memoir, and interviews with a roster of brilliant friends and collaborators like Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, and Carol Kane. Remembering Gene Wilder shines a light on an essential performer, writer, director, and all-around Mensch

The Way to Happiness at 7 PM

Director: Nicolas Steil

Year: 2023

Run Time: 115 minutes

Country: Belgium, France, Luxembourg

Language: Yiddish, German, French with English Subtitles

Genre: Drama / Comedy

Saül Birnbaum is a “hidden child”, separated from his parents at the age of 6 to escape the upcoming Shoah, sent by a Kindertransport abroad, from Vienna to Brussels. In 1986, Saül is on the road to resilience, he tries to reinvent his life, to re-enchant it. On the stage of the Délicatessen he owns, the 7th Art triumphs every day. With his protégé Joakin, a young Chilean director who fled Pinochet, they decide to write the story of Saül’s childhood and make a film of it. But love comes knocking on his door and confronts him with his past.

May 9, 2024

The Monkey House at 7 PM

Director: Avi Nesher

Year: 2023

Run Time: 128 minutes

Country: Israel

Language: Hebrew, Italian, with English subtitles

Genre: Drama

Israeli author Amitai Kariv, once a famous writer, sees his reputation fading. Feeling in danger of being forgotten, he concocts a scheme to have a graduate student at an American university write a dissertation about him. But there is no such student. For a remarkably high month’s pay, Amitai enlists a young aspiring actress, Margo Mai, to make the plan possible. Margo, who doesn’t know it’s faked, is intelligent, flighty, and also has her own agenda. Remarkably, the scheme works…until it doesn’t. Celebrated Israeli director Avi Nesher gives us a film about the roles people choose, the ones they think they have to choose, and who they become.

Date: May 1 - 9, 2024

Location:

Thalian Hall Center -

310 Chestnut Street

Wilmington, NC 28401

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