Charles Wahl’s quirky Canadian movie, The Mohel, deals with an ancient religious tradition, the brit milah, the solemn yet joyous circumcision ceremony which initiates an eight-day-old Jewish male into the fraternity of Jewish peoplehood. Performed by a mohel, a rabbi trained in this specialized surgical procedure, it’s the oldest custom in Judaism. Wahl’s competently-crafted film, 14 […]
The first image in Matthew Bissonnette’s reflective movie, Death of a Ladies’ Man, is a giant-sized mural of the late poet Leonard Cohen on the side of a building in Montreal. This is not a haphazard choice on the part of the director. The spirit of Cohen’s songs, at once melancholy and plaintive, permeates this […]
Germany’s neo-Nazi scene is at the center of David Wnendt’s wrenching movie, Combat Girls, which will be digitally screened from March 11-13 by the Goethe Institut in Toronto in conjunction with the Toronto Jewish Film Society and the Neuberger Holocaust Education Center. Wnendt focuses on two young, impressionable women who are drawn into a skinhead […]
Thousands of starry-eyed young European men joined the Islamic State organization after its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed what would be his short-lived caliphate in Syria and Iraq in 2014. They were predominately Muslims, but some were Christian converts to Islam. Two of the recruits, Ferhat Keskin, a German Muslim, and Oliver N, an Austrian […]
An unknown number of feral dogs, possibly thousands, wander the streets, alleys, roads and parks of Istanbul, passing the time of day and night, searching for scraps of food, and looking for shelter and companionship. Such strays were once caught and euthanized by the Turkish authorities, but no more. Now they roam freely and multiply, […]
Philippe Falardeau’s empathetic coming-of-age drama, My Salinger Year, which opens on VOD platforms and in selected theatres on March 5, unfolds in mid-1990s New York City as an aspiring writer struggles to find her voice. The central character, Joanna (played by the bright and vivacious Margaret Qualley), is ambitious. She wants to write novels, travel […]
Among Israel’s most ardent supporters in the United States are evangelical Christians, who, by one estimate, comprise something like a quarter of the American electorate. Socially and politically conservative, and profoundly steeped in biblical lore, they are staunch allies of Israel’s right-wing government. Highly supportive of the settlement project in the West Bank and dismissive […]
Tomer Shushan’s 19-minute film, White Eye, has been short listed for this year’s Academy Award in the short live action category. Screened at movie festivals in Israel and abroad, it has won a succession of awards. Unfolding in real time at night in Tel Aviv’s dingy meat packing district, it ostensibly deals with a bicycle […]
Itay Tal’s gripping Hebrew-language movie, God of the Piano, which is now available on DVD and digital outlets like iTunes and Amazon, fleshes out themes such as ambition, disappointment, deception and obsession. His central character, a pregnant pianist named Anat (Naama Preis), embodies these qualities. Sitting at home in front of her piano, she pours out […]
David Osit’s absorbing 89-minute documentary, Mayor, is a nuanced portrait of Musa Hadid, the Christian Palestinian mayor of Ramallah — the seat of the Palestinian Authority and the epicenter of commerce and culture in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six Day War. Osit, whose film is currently available […]