The JAC Jewish Film Festival in Seattle opened its gates for the twelfth consecutive year last night at the massive CINERAMA Theater down town, with a slam-dunk opening gala double-header, (films from USA and Israel), and an aimiable audience chat with actor Judd Hirsh, following the screening of his latest film, "Brother's Shadow" which opened the festival. "Brother's Shadow" is an absolutely new film, still in search of a distributor, by first-time director Todd Yellin, telling the story of a dysfunctional Jewish family with a jailbird son and a failed father-son relationship wherein Judd as the father. Heavy going for a small film with a cast of mostly unknowns.
Obviously a film of personal dedication rather than multiplex appeal, but could find a niche audience.

"The Belly Dancer", director and producer, Marek Rosenbaum, Israel, 2006 (90
Minutes) was an eye-opening discovery -- A partially tongue-in-cheek Jewish gangster film, with a very cute young gun moll who is a passionate devotee of Turkish belly dancing, and is the femme fatale of the title, around whom this surprise-a-minute comedic thriller revolves. Except for the fact that the main guys were all talking Hebrew this could, for all intents and purposes, have been a French "polar" (with echos of Godard) or even, a recent American job. This film takes you on a ride with so many unexpected twists and turns that you'll come out saying "This TOO is Israel???"
--"Belly Dancer" looks to me like a sharp new turn for Israeli film - one that may signal the kind of New Direction caused by "Diva" in French film at the beginning of the ighties. Hope ity gets around, because "Dancer" is really a winner and introduces a whole new mini-pantheon of Israeli movie actors.

The thirty film line-up is heavily weighted in favor of Israel, so I'm looking forward to more eye-openers. Also on tap, the NW premiere of "Steel Toes', Canada 2006, starring David Straithairn as a Jewish lawyer defending a neo-nazi skinhead in a "hate murder' trial.

by Alex Deleon, Seattle
Friday, March 17, 2007