Christian Petzold’s newest film, Transit, which opens at Toronto’s TIFF Bell Lightbox on November 9, is a meditation about exile, rootlessness and trauma. Petzold bends time itself to rework Anna Seghers’ 1944 novel about a German refugee in Paris who assumes another man’s identity to save himself from fascist barbarians marching toward the city. This […]
Three antisemitic films were released by Germany in 1940, a banner year for Adolf Hitler’s regime. Poland had been conquered, spelling finis to its independence and its venerable Jewish community. France, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg would surrender to the German army. Only Britain would successfully resist the Nazi onslaught. At a moment when the Nazi juggernaut […]
Gustav Moller’s Danish thriller, The Guilty, which opens in Toronto on October 19, keeps you on the edge of your seat. Unfolding over several hours in dim-lit cubicle at a police call center, it’s a well-crafted movie, exceedingly spare, focused and suspenseful. Virtually the only character in it is Asger Holm (Jakob Cedergreen), a laconic […]
Wilshire Boulevard Temple, the oldest synagogue in Los Angeles, was in danger of abandonment in the first decade of the 21st century. Membership was declining and the building was falling apart. Its fate hung in the balance. Thanks to the vision and persistence of its senior rabbi, Steve Leder, the shul, listed on the National […]
Nearly two years after his widely unexpected victory in the U.S. presidential election, one may be forgiven for wondering how Republican Donald Trump managed to defeat his much better qualified Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. Clinton, after all, had excellent credentials. She had been the American secretary of state for four years. And she had learned […]
Joe Weider and his younger sibling, Ben, were visionaries, the founders of the modern fitness movement. Drawing a connection between exercise, nutrition and good health, the Montreal-born Jewish brothers founded a business empire that sells gym equipment and nutritional supplements and publishes body building magazines. George Gallo’s movie, Bigger, which opens in Canada on October […]
The security barrier that seals off Israel almost hermetically from the West Bank is a source of immense angst and controversy. To most Israelis, it’s a “separation fence” that keeps Palestinian terrorists at bay and thereby saves lives. To the Palestinians, it’s a “racial segregation wall” that restricts their movements, cuts them off from their […]
To seasoned rock climbers, El Capitan, a massive granite formation in California’s Yosemite National Park, is the ultimate challenge. More than 3,000 feet in height, this iconic monolith has been conquered by skillful enthusiasts using rope and protective equipment, but until Alex Honnold came along, no one had ever climbed it in free solo style. […]
Long before he was elected president of the United States, Donald Trump said he hoped that Michael Moore, the iconoclastic documentarian, would never make a movie about him. Famous last words. Presumably, Trump understood that Moore would not exactly treat him with kid gloves. He was absolutely right. In his latest documentary, Fahrenheit 11/9, which […]
The American comedian Gilda Radner died prematurely in 1989 at 42 when she succumbed to cancer. What a loss it was to the entertainment industry. She had so much more to contribute. Lisa D’Apolito’s biopic, Gilda, which opens in Toronto on September 21 at the Hot Docs Bloor Cinema, brings her back for an fleeting […]