The San Diego International Jewish Film Festival (SDIJFF) opens tonight with a tribute to Holocaust Remembrance Day that includes film, poetry, a short play reading and music. On Tuesday, the festival moves into full swing with films running all afternoon and evening, plus virtual options from Feb. 9 through 11.
The festival enters its 35th year with a showcase of more than 30 contemporary Jewish-related films, plus panels and discussions.
Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz will be the keynote speaker on Feb. 4. Mankiewicz represents an interesting convergence of Hollywood and politics since his grandfather, Herman J. Mankiewicz, wrote "Citizen Kane"; his great-uncle, Joe Mankiewicz, wrote and directed "All About Eve"; and his father, Frank Mankiewicz, was Robert Kennedy’s press secretary. He may tap into all of that for his keynote speech (he prefers to call it "a talk" to ease some of the pressure), but his passion for movies is key.
"I didn't like having dinner before the movie. I always wanted to have dinner after the movie because you want to talk about the movie," Mankiewicz said. "Even if you didn't like it, you want to talk about the movie."
What I love about SDIJFF is that it is a place where discussing film is just as important as watching it.
"Festivals do a tremendous service in putting people in front of theaters, and I think, reminding people of the value of that shared experience," Mankiewicz added. "This gets movies that wouldn't otherwise be seen, seen, and then these talks that put things in context."
Putting the life of one artist into a bigger context is at the heart of the documentary, “The True Story of Tamara de Lempicka & The Art of Survival." Filmmaker Julie Rubio spent years chasing the story of this stunning art deco artist, first attempting a narrative film and then deciding to make a documentary.
"There was just nothing better than to be in lockdown with Lempicka and her beautiful artwork, and really trying to dig in and figure out her true story, her real story," Rubio said. "And that's when I uncovered these groundbreaking documents that hid details of her real name, which was Tamara Rose Horowitz. And her real birthday, and just really started to gather the truth."
The documentary gets to those truths but also celebrates Lempicka’s bold and innovative art.
"I just think her art captures beauty, but it also captures that horrific wartimes and her remarkable will to survive and reinvent herself," Rubio said. "She was living in a world that wanted her gone because she was Jewish, because she was a woman. She was other, and she was celebrating that she was other."
It's a story that Rubio says still resonates today.
"I think attempting to marginalize those that are different, or worse, just eliminate anyone that is other, I think is really more than wrong," Rubio added. "The film highlights that an attack on art and artists is really an important and dangerous warning sign for all these other freedoms that we hold so dear."
Freedom is at the core of another documentary screening at the festival, “Ain’t No Back to a Merry-Go-Round,” which looks at a 1960 protest to integrate the Glen Echo Amusement Park in Glen Echo, Maryland.
Ilana Trachtman was inspired to make the film after she realized that the enchanting photos of the park that she saw as a kid were devoid of racial diversity.
"The absence of the diversity, and worse, me not noticing it, was shameful to me and really like a reckoning," Trachtman recalled. "That was where the impetus came from, shame, and being intrigued, and just the notion that there was this lost civil rights history."
It is a story from the past, yet it is really not that long ago.
"We're now 64 years from this protest," Trachtman said. "In 1960, 63 years prior to that, 1897, was the last lynching in Montgomery County, Maryland. In that time, that 63 years was from lynching to Jim Crow, and that's the same amount of time as we are from Jim Crow today."
Finding archival material to create the film was a challenge because when the protest happened, no one realized its significance. Then one of the people she had interviewed called her.
"She had found a little yellow Kodachrome box that was labeled 'Glen Echo 1960,'" Trachtman said. "When I saw the first frame, I understood that I was looking at the protest."
Not only that, but the footage synced up with an audio recording she had found earlier involving an encounter between a white security guard and a Black protester. The guard asked the man his race, to which the man answered, "I am a member of the human race." But the guard insisted the park was only for whites.
Trachtman was elated, "that the piece of audio that I had where that conversation is taking place was filmed by this woman's father on that Kodachrome. It's incredible. These two assets, this audio recording and this film footage, were separated by 3,000 miles for 60 years, and it was just because of incredible luck and perseverance that I was able to marry them and they're here for posterity."
Another documentary that displays impressive perseverance is "Sabbath Queen," which was filmed over 21 years. It follows Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie's journey as he navigates an ancestral legacy as well as a desire to be a drag queen rebel. Lau-Lavie is the founder of New York City's Lab/Shul, a welcoming, "God-optional," experimental congregation. This is a film that reflects what the festival does at its best: look unflinchingly and thoughtfully at complex questions and issues. It is a film about family, tradition, rebellion and how to not just seek change but to explore the actual best way to make that change happen.
These documentaries highlight not just amazing stories but the dogged persistence of the filmmakers to uncover or gather amazing material. These are only three of more than two dozen films worth seeing and discussing at this years San Diego International Jewish Film festival.
