Joyce Forum provides short films with impact

By Eva Trieger

Eva Trieger
Eva Trieger

film festival logo 2015LA JOLLA, California — After my animated and upbeat interview with Joyce Axelrod, I was looking forward to a spirited and playful morning at the Joyce Forum.  I was completely caught off guard, not because of anything Joyce said or promised, but simply because I anticipated an array of fun, lively shorts that would engage my mind and tickle my funny bone.

WOW!  Was I in for a shocker.  While the films were largely compelling, several were very disturbing and suspenseful.  The settings were varied, the time periods disparate, and the actors either interacted or avoided each other.

The first film began innocently enough.  A female Israeli scout leader, or madricha, is taking a group of pubescent boys on a hike when one of them disappears.  The party stays together in search of the missing boy.  The adventurous takes a turn for the sinister when the boys collectively turn on the counselor, putting her in a very compromising and frightening position. Has Anyone Seen Eyal Nurich? was a very edgy way to begin the morning’s selection of shorts.  In Hebrew, the subtitles are almost superfluous, as the facial expressions and jeers are universally understood.  The film is positively haunting as the boys’ actions span the spectrum of innocent teasing to abject emotional abuse.  Director Shira Porat masterfully manipulates the viewer with little dialogue and minimal lighting in a total of fifteen minutes.

Elevation was a longer short film, twenty-one minutes in length.  From the outset a religious man is trying to get home to Safat for Shabbat, but has missed his bus, and becomes lost in the “Sodom and Gomorrah” of modern Tel Aviv.  He seeks refuge and a toilet in a seedy bar, and has a brief, poignant exchange with the barmaid.  She is a scantily clad tough young woman, who is at first disgusted with the “penguin,” but in a short soliloquy, he explains how he imagined his life, and then he asks her to “lift him up.” What follows can only be termed tender, not erotic.  Both characters take their leave altered and contented.

Hungarian director, Attila Hartung, delivered an horrific story of three Jewish sisters who are secreted in the wardrobe of the apartment of a well-known doctor. The year is 1944, and the Holocaust has robbed the Jews of their dignity and their safety.  Their protector shields them from a German soldier who comes to the doctor’s for medical attention.  After he leaves, the doctor offers a celebratory Chanukah toast, followed by the gift of his deceased wife’s pearls to the sister he desires.  When she refuses the gift, he orders her sisters into the street and savagely rapes her in front of them.  The entire 17-minute Ischler is fraught with tension and betrayal.

Israeli filmmaker, Yair Fridman, illustrates the plight of an elderly man living in a nursing home in Israel with his 11 minute film Relocation. As he sees fellow residents wheeled out with toe tags, covered by a sheet, he realizes he must get out ASAP.  He convinces himself that his daughter, who is moving to Cleveland, will take him to America to live with her.  His churlish retorts and harsh criticism of his friends in the home demonstrate his fear and disgust at being left there to die.  He packs his suitcases and when the daughter arrives, it is to say goodbye to him, not collect him.

The last short film of the Joyce Forum Series 2 came from director George Zaverdas.  This American director brings us David and Goliath a Holocaust tale based on a real life experience of a Jew in Czechoslovakia in 1943.  The film opens with a man running through the forest, as he is pursued by Nazis.  He finds himself near a farmhouse and face to face with a ferocious German Shepherd.  The man appeals to the canine, who becomes his savior.  Our David, hidden in the doghouse, is spared detection by the Nazi officers, and later fed and aided by the farmer.  The film closed with archival footage of the Jewish man, several years later, describing his elation at finding the farmer in a POW camp and arranging for his release.

The Joyce Forum provided so much fodder in this morning of shorts.  The films continued all day long at the Garfield Theater within the JCC, and the ArcLight Theater in La Jolla.  The San Diego Jewish Film Festival continues through February 15, with tickets available at the box office (858-362-1348) or online at www.sdjff.org.

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Trieger is a freelance writer who specializes in coverage of the arts.  Your comment may be posted in the space below or sent to eva.trieger@sdjewishworld.com

 

1 thought on “Joyce Forum provides short films with impact”

  1. Eva,
    Heavy,Heavy. You are correct and your description of the films are so accurate.But, there were some lighthearted films sprinkled throughout the day. Did you see, Simpler Times with Jerry Stiller, Speaking of Yiddish, Banana Bread, The Man Who Buried His Own Leg? Our curating team tries to find lighter films but we are confined to the ones we get to view. Perhaps next year we’ll find filmmakers with a lighter touch.

    Thanks for all your great coverage.

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