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A Day of Shorts

Guest Speaker

Dr. Eric Goldman

Dedicated Film Educator, Lecturer and Jewish Scholar

Session 1

Aulcia

Aulcie tells the inspiring story of Aulcie Perry, a basketball legend who led Maccabi Tel Aviv to an upset win in the European Championship. During the summer of 1976, Aulcie Perry was spotted by a scout for Maccabi Tel Aviv while playing at the Rucker courts in Harlem and was quickly signed to play for their fledgling team. The Israeli players immediately responded to Aulcie’s leadership and that year they had what one Sports Illustrated writer described as “the most extraordinary season in its remarkable history” and what Perry later called “the best nine months of my life.” In 1977, Perry helped the team to its first European Championship, a prize they took four years later again under his leadership. After the season, to the surprise of many, Aulcie Perry converted to Judaism, adopted the Hebrew name Elisha Ben Avraham, and became an Israeli citizen. This inspiring film tells the story of this remarkable athlete who captured the spirit of a nation, triumphant and victorious against all odds, and put Israel on the map.

Length: 72 min

Language: English with some Hebrew

Director: Dani Menkin

Session 2

The Chop

The Chop tells the story of Yossi, a charismatic kosher butcher who finds himself in a moment of crisis upon losing his job. After ringing round numerous other kosher butchers to no avail, he takes the unusual decision to work in a halal butcher. However to do so, he must use all his guile and charisma to hide his true identity. It is a story that aims to explore the relationship between Jewish and Muslim culture in modern London life, incorporating ‘fish out of water’ humour with moments of laugh­out­loud slapstick.

Length: 16 min

Language: English

Director: Lewis Rose

German Shepherd

As a Jew growing up in Baltimore, David’s vision of Germany was shaped by the stories of his Holocaust-survivor mother; later in life, he reflects on whether it is possible to overcome this history. Simple in aesthetics yet potent in philosophical introspection, this animated documentary poses difficult questions about the human capacity to forgive unimaginable evil acts.

Length: 9 min 30 sec

Language: English

Director: Nils Bergendal

Hannah Cohen's Holy Communion

A spirited 7-year-old, growing up in Dublin in the 1970’s, can’t wait to make her Holy Communion. The only problem is – she’s the wrong religion.

Length: 13 min

Language: English

Director: Shimmy Marcus

Sugihara Survivors: Jewish and Japanese, Past and Present

A short documentary about Chiune Sugihara and some of the “Sugihara survivors”, who he helped save. The film shows a Japanese writer, Akira Kitade, trying to trace the identities of some of the survivors. The film uncovers close connections between Jewish and Japanese people in the past that should help inform and encourage future relationships.

Length: 25 min

Language: English with Japenese subtitles

Director: Junichi Kajioka

Session 3

Joe's Violin

A 91-year-old Holocaust survivor donates his violin to an instrument drive, changing the life of a 12-year-old schoolgirl from the Bronx and unexpectedly, his own.

Length: 24 min

Language: English

Director: Kahane Cooperman

Vishneva

Vishneva, Belarus Soviet Union Poland is grounded in the oral history testimony of a Holocaust survivor and has been deconstructed by the interviewee’s son. Unlike most oral histories that focus on the words of the interviewee, Vishneva uses silent images from the interview superimposed with typed memories that describe the unspoken pain borne by father and son through more than half a century.

Length: 2 min 43 seconds

Language: English

Director: Dr. Jacob J. Podber

A Thousand Kisses

Separated by the fear of prosecution in the Nazi Germany of 1933, a young Jewish couple in Berlin make loose plans to reunite on the safe tropical shores of Brazil. Inspired by the actual correspondence recovered by the couple’s grandsons 80 years later in São Paulo, A Thousand Kisses presents a peculiar love story tainted by the harsh historical context of its time, with a light appeal of irony and real-life poetry.

Length: 15 min

Language: English

Director: Richard Goldgewicht

Home Movie

A story of immigration, of dislocation and of secrets told through home movies found unseen for over 50 years, Home Movie covers life in Czechoslovakia in the 30’s all the way to Cardiff in the 60s. Hints of that which goes unspoken snatches of tales of those left behind, of silence about the past, of absences unexplained, of non-existent family members – begin to fill in around the edges as the intriguing juxtaposition of happy images and an increasingly uneasy undercurrent lead to a moving conclusion.

Length: 18 min

Language: English

Director: Caroline Pick

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