The Bama Theatre is bringing some Jewish culture to Tuscaloosa for the ninth year in a row. Its annual Jewish Film Festival begins this Saturday night at 6:30 and features a different film every night for four straight nights.
A food festival that features traditional Jewish cuisine and Klezner music by The Promised Band will start off the event. The first film of the series, “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground,” will then be shown at 7:30 p.m.
“This event is an interesting microcosm for students to see Jewish culture up close, especially for those from a small town where there might not have been any Jewish families,” said David Allgood, manager of the Bama Theatre.
The Jewish Film Festival began in 2003 through a partnership between Temple Emanu-El and the Arts and Humanities Council of Tuscaloosa County. It was established to introduce local audiences to the best of Jewish filmmaking and expand cultural and social understanding.
The festival’s films are all carefully selected by Temple Emanu-El and represent the best in recent Jewish filmmaking, as well as the best illustrations of its culture. “The Klezmatics: On Holy Ground” is a full-length documentary about the Grammy Award winning, New York based Klezmer band.
Sunday’s feature film is “Yoo-Hoo Mrs. Goldberg,” the humorous story of television pioneer Gertrude Berg, who received the first Emmy for Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.
Monday night’s film, “Ajami,” was an Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film and is a powerful crime drama that tells the story of conflicting views among Jews, Muslims and Christians living in a Tel Aviv neighborhood.
The festival’s final film, “Holy Rollers,” was an official selection of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, star of “The Social Network,” and is inspired by true events of Hasidic Jews who were recruited in the late nineties to smuggle Ecstasy from Europe into the United States.
“We hope that students will come out because the event is always a lot of fun and this will be a great opportunity for students to see films they wouldn’t normally be able to see as well as experience a new culture,” Allgood said.
Admission to both the food festival and screening of the opening film is $12 in advance and $15 at the door. The food festival will be limited to 200 guests and advance tickets are only available through the Temple Emanu-El Sisterhood at 759-3230 or [email protected].
Tickets to attend just the opening film or any of the other three are available at the door for $7 general admission and $6 for students and seniors. More information on the event and further synopses of all the films are available at tuscarts.org.
“The festival sounds like a great chance for students to learn about a religion that we don’t ever experience in Tuscaloosa,” said Marc Moncayo, a sophomore majoring in secondary education. “We need to have events like these that students can attend because it allows us to be better informed and more diverse.”
